Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) isn’t the most terrible guy, but he isn’t a particularly good one, either. He lies often, behaves petulantly (nigh-fatally, even) when he doesn’t get his way, and can treat his family with condescension bordering on contempt. Rachel (Odessa A’zion), his married lover and childhood friend, worships the ground he walks on, but Marty seems to view her as little more than an accessory as he pursues his actual passion in life: professional table tennis.

Yes, Marty Mauser has an overriding, obsessive, feral dedication to the sport of ping pong, and he not only aims to be its greatest player, but also to help make it a major force in the American market, as it has already gained massive popularity in Asia. His only issue is that he isn’t really a legit ping pong player, at least not yet: he actually works as a shoe salesman at a shop owned by his uncle Murray (Larry “Ratso” Sloman), who, like many of Marty’s family members, would rather the young man make a respectable living doing anything else but ping pong. But the thing is, Marty Mauser isn’t just an arrogant dreamer—he is also very, very good at table tennis, and has even secured a spot to compete in the British Open and potentially snag the title of World No. 1. […]