This article is not a debate as to which director is better because, for one, this is only Benny’s first solo outing compared to Josh’s second (he directed The Pleasures of Being Robbed in 2008). Second, if we’re basing it solely on these two films, the debate doesn’t exist. From a critical, audience, box office, awards, and cultural standpoint, Supreme obliterated Machine. Furthermore, if you watched both films and wondered what exactly it was that Benny did on the set of Gems, I don’t blame you. That said, it’s worth remembering that for Supreme, Josh carried over a lot of the key crew members from his previous collaborations with his brother, notably cinematographer Darius Khondji, composer Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never), and, most importantly, co-writer/co-editor Ronald Bronstein. The only person Benny took with him to Machine was casting director Jennifer Venditti... who also cast Supreme. So, comparing the two films feels futile, not simply because one is clearly better than the other, but because it’s so obvious to see how they are worlds apart. Machine is sedated, muted, and almost documentary-like; Supreme is propulsive, electric, and in your face. Machine wants to see its characters tick, Supreme wants to see them bleed. To me, it’s easy to see why Supreme clicked with most critics and audiences, whereas Machine didn’t land quite as emphatically. And I say that as a fan of both films.

That said, my interest comes from something completely different, and it’s tied to what has always been key to The Safdies’ brilliance: not form, but the protagonists. Like any Safdie project, both Machine and Supreme are character studies of deeply flawed and opportunistic individuals, but what intrigued me the most upon rewatching both films is the degree to which Machine’s Mark Kerr (played by Dwayne Johnson) and Supreme’s Marty Mauser (played by Timothée Chalamet) seem to create a Venn diagram of what each Safdie brother is interested in and the type of personalities they seek to examine.

WHAT MAKES THEM DIFFERENT?

Before I dig into what the Safdie brothers did similarly, I think it’s important to know what separates their two lead characters. Some aspects are obvious, of course. Kerr is a real MMA fighter; Mauser is mostly fictional, although he is loosely inspired by a real ping-pong player named Marty Reisman. Kerr, while cold, especially in the relationship with his girlfriend, Dawn (Emily Blunt), is likable and genuine. Mauser is a scumbag. He’s charming, sure, but he is a lying narcissist who consistently burns every bridge in his life. Kerr’s gentle demeanour offsets his massive physique, while Mauser is a scrawny fast talker. Both characters tend to dig themselves deeper into holes, but Mauser’s combativeness results in hostility from the people he’s screwing over. Meanwhile, Kerr’s internal struggles are what blow past the network of people that care about him. Mauser views his opponents as pawns to his greatness, while Kerr has respect for the people he fights. These key differences are important to note before I go further, but it also boils down to the ways in which Josh and Benny each studied their characters. It all comes down to style.

THE MASK OF AMBITION

An important link between Machine and Supreme is the main characters’ relationship with their own pride. In both cases, Mauser and Kerr view their excellence and athletic prowess as a crutch and an angle to their ambition: being the best in the world. Both Safdies seem to understand that devoting your life and talent to a self-fulfilling prophecy is inherently isolating. To quote Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary) towards the end of Supreme, “win that game, you’re gonna be here forever...and you’ll never be happy.” The only way for both characters to achieve their goals is to win their respective championships, something neither of them accomplishes. However, given that these are period pieces and we, the audience, are watching with historical clarity, there is an extra level of tragedy knowing that everything we see Kerr and Mauser do is fruitless. The UFC didn’t really become popular until the mid-2000s, long after Kerr’s heyday, and ping-pong, despite all of Mauser’s grand speculation that it would become huge in America, has never become popular outside of Asia. If both men had won, what would they actually have to show for it? Some money and a taste of niche fame? A moment of dopamine and self-acknowledgement? Then what?

For both Kerr and Mauser, their ambition is everything, and nothing else matters beyond what they see as the end goal. It’s very clear they are talented, but delusion seems to be guiding the bad decisions they make and the relationships they strain. While the specifics of their self-sabotage aren’t the same, they seem to be motivated by the same endgame: greatness that amounts to nothingness. But it’s within the individual characters’ source of pride where the brothers differentiate. Kerr’s pride comes from his general lust for the highs that come from adoration and the masculine idea of what victory looks like; Mauser’s pride comes from young naivety and post-World War II American exceptionalism. Interestingly, despite writing these films separately, each Safdie wants to mine the inner workings of someone who wants nothing more than to accomplish something that, ultimately, isn’t important, all while being held back by destructive pride.

THE COST OF LOSING

Speaking of pride, one clear attribute the two characters share is their relationship with victory. For one, they are both truly sore losers. When Mauser loses the British Open finals against Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), he instantly and aggressively demands a rematch, claiming the match was unfair due to Endo’s sponge racket. When Kerr loses his first fight against Igor Vovchanchyn (Oleksandr Usyk), he desperately claims the win was unfair due to Igor’s use of an illegal knee to the head. Whether fair arguments or not, both Safdies are more concerned with the way the two initially responded to their losses and the internal ramifications of it. In both of their minds, winning equals life accomplished, as the two openly boasted, with Mauser going as far as to say his winning would be the best-case scenario for ping-pong as a sport. Maybe there is truth in that, but it's readily apparent that he doesn’t actually care. Both he and Kerr have tunnel vision when it comes to their ambitions. To them, the only path through that tunnel is to win, so much so that in an interview, when asked what he would do if he ever lost a fight, Kerr simply answered, “I try not to let thoughts like that enter my mind.” When pressed again, he literally can’t process the question. For both characters and their perceived dependency on victory, their big losses early in their respective films is what sets off the series of events that bring upon their downfalls.

THE CURSE OF DOMESTIC LIFE

The endings to both Supreme and Machine are fascinating when compared to each other. On face value, they are almost the complete opposite, but they tie the Safdie brothers’ similarities together. In Machine, Kerr has reached a boiling point in his fractured relationship with Dawn as he’s faced with the possibility of having to fight and beat his best friend Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader), the purest relationship he has in the entire film, in order to compete in the finals of the 2000 Grand Prix. However, Kerr is eliminated early, Coleman winds up winning the championship, and Kerr’s initial despair characteristically shows before slowly washing away. We then flash forward to the present, where we see footage of the real Kerr living a normal life, far away from the glory of his past, seemingly content.

In Supreme, after learning that he won’t be able to participate in the World Championship while also throwing a match against Endo in an exhibition meant as a marketing ploy in Tokyo, Mauser blows up the event and demands a real match. He narrowly defeats Endo in front of the large Japanese crowd, where the only people rooting for him are a small group of American servicemen. Mauser returns home, broke but emotionally riveted, as in his mind, he has accomplished his life’s mission. He beat the best, so he is the greatest. It’s undeniable. He is now ready to embrace Rachel (Odessa A’zion) and his newborn child, no longer seeing them as an obstacle to his dream. However, when he sees his baby for the first time, he weeps. It’s unclear whether he fully realizes it yet, but he is now facing his worst nightmare: a normal life. In other words: Kerr lost but won; Mauser won but lost.

In both cases, the weight they put on their own backs has been lifted, one tragically and one cathartically. Granted, we don’t know what happens to Mauser, but we’re told in text that Kerr married his girlfriend a week after his loss and they had a child together. However, the outcomes as seen on screen draw upon similar conclusions by the Safdies, and, in my opinion, they create the perfect marriage of two directors differently studying the same idea. As I already mentioned, both Kerr and Mauser have very similar self-imposed ideas of what success looks like and how to pull themselves into the spotlight. Breaking away from the typical sports movie trajectory, both films culminate in a seemingly inconsequential match with fascinating results. Kerr’s loss allows him to let go of his self-destructive desire to win and embrace the idea of normality. Mauser won, but he’s thrust into reality anyway, forced to own all the terrible behaviour he perpetrated in pursuit of a success that he can only bask in for a short time. The skill he worked to perfect his entire life will now go to waste, all of which is perfectly summed up during Supreme’s final shot: Marty Mauser stares at his newborn child, tears in his eyes, while the words to Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” ring out: “welcome to your life, there’s no turning back.”