Presumably, Josh Safdie won’t be fully satisfied with a film he’s made until he’s content that it is unmistakably a heart attack transmogriphied into a narrative. Best known for the features he co-directed with his brother Benny, Safdie is drawn to stories about characters trapped in dire situations of mounting danger and anxiety, preferably caused by their own suspect decision-making processes. Marty Supreme suggests that as Safdie’s filmography proceeds, the titles on it are going to escalate in their sweaty fervor.

Set in the early nineteen-fifties, the film stars Timothée Chalamet as Marty Mauser, a table tennis player who’s certain that global stardom is his destiny. Mauser is a motormouthed hustler, constantly playing every angle to get the accommodations and luxuries he sees as his due. The primary goal is getting a spot in the brackets of international tournaments centered on his chosen sport, but he also has more general hungers: for women, for status, for the almighty dollar.

Safdie fashions a script, writing with regular collaborator Ronald Bronstein, with the sprightly energy of a screwball comedy and then directs the material accordingly. Safdie and Bronstein also edited the film, and they didn’t go easy on themselves. Whatever other strengths or flaws Marty Supreme has, it definitely moves. Marty ricochets between other characters: his manipulative, worried mother (Fran Drescher), a young, married neighbor (Odessa A’zion) carrying his baby, a cab driving buddy and scam compatriot (Tyler Okonma), a faded movie star in a loveless marriage (Gwyneth Paltrow). In each case, the character’s affection for Marty is mightily tested by his noxious behavior. Safdie is so relentless in depicting Marty’s bad qualities and Chalamet so fearlessly committed to portraying them without courting sympathy that most relationships endure past the point of plausibility.

If Marty Supreme isn’t always convincing, it sure is bravura filmmaking. The cinematography by Darius Khondji is rich and enveloping, and the score by Daniel Lopatin has a manic edginess. All the acting is impressive, even in the instances that border on stunt casting, such as Abel Ferrara as a criminal Marty crosses paths with in a seedy hotel and Penn Jillette as a testy farmer. Chalamet clearly knows that a big, messy role like this one is hard to come by, and he feasts on it like a man anticipating famished stretches to come. In the first part that’s asked something significant of her in a long, long time, Paltrow offers a reminder of the stretch in the nineteen-nineties when she came at her screen work with an uncommon melding of naturalism and actorly cunning.

Safdie presides over all this bustling business like a feverish maestro. Even the awkwardly squawked notes are somehow exciting. There’s little time to second guess. Just keep racing.