As a film enthusiast, I have at times found myself impressed with the technical and artistic merits of a film while at the same time being at odds with the narrative. This is certainly the case with three Best Picture nominees for the March 15 Academy Awards.

To a lesser extent, as indicated in a previous column, this holds true for Sinners, with its climax including a decidedly bloody development involving vampires.

More so is it true of Marty Supreme, loosely based on the life of table tennis player Marty Reisman, who gained prominence in the mid-20th century for his flashy lifestyle. The film, however, is far from being an accurate depiction of Reisman’s life. Instead, it focuses on would-be table tennis champion Marty Mauser.

Marty is shown as an immoral, self-absorbed, small-time crook and grifter, willing to use anybody and any swindle to get money in order to fly to championship table tennis games.

While I found this “hero” to be repulsive in his shenanigans, I found it difficult to accept the fact that he is supposed to be overwhelmingly charming to women, whom he is willing to use sexually and for any other advantage they can offer. Moreover, I found it impossible to believe that Marty can play table tennis at world championship level when he spends his entire time involved in petty crime and apparently never practicing for his sport.

It is true that the film is brilliantly filmed by writer-director-editor Joseph Saldie, while Timothee Chalamet gives his best shot in the title role. However, I found myself constantly repulsed by a protagonist who has little charm and abundant immorality. Even the intended comedy moments were, for me, simply ugly. It was not an enjoyable experience to spend time with Marty in what was intended to be a comedy-drama, no matter how brilliantly filmed.

For different reasons, I found some considerable difficulty with Hamnet. This is a highly fictionalized account of Shakespeare’s married life.

Of course, it is true that we know little of the private life of the Bard, except that he was married to Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant at the time; that he did not follow his father’s trade of being a glove maker; that at some time he moved to London, leaving behind his family; that he became a successful playwright and a wealthy partner in a theatrical company; and that he wrote the greatest plays in the history of literature.

Hamnet concentrates on the life of his wife, here called Agne, about whom we know almost nothing. She is shown as a woman with a background in witchcraft, a woman of intense passion who loves her husband and is deeply devoted to her children.

All of this is revealed in scene after scene with unrelenting intensity. In the title role, Jessie Buckley pulls out all the stops as she experiences love, separation, sexual intimacy, childbirth, and, most importantly, the death of her son from the plague. As background, Paul Mescal lends charming and engaging support as William Shakespeare.

Hamnet is, indeed, beautifully filmed, well acted, and well edited — and dark (both literally and emotionally). Ultimately, in the final sequence, the film does make a moving statement about the healing power of art, but oh! The journey there is so unrelenting in its harrowing account of sadness, suffering, grief, and rage that I found it to be just over the top in all its anguish as it wallows in emotional intensity.

Perhaps because I was raised in Britain, where the “stiff upper lip” was de rigueur, Hamnet proved to be a film whose artistry I could admire, but which I found too emotionally intense to be appealing.

Oh, well! One can’t have everything!


The 2026 Best Picture Nominees:

  • Bugonia
  • F1
  • Frankenstein
  • Hamnet
  • Marty Supreme
  • One Battle After Another
  • The Secret Agent
  • Sentimental Value
  • Sinners
  • Train Dreams

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