Megan McLachlan thinks Marty Supreme features one of the year’s most unlikable characters, which is only an awards liability if you’re an actress.

*Spoilers Ahead*

While watching Marty Supreme, I couldn’t stop thinking about Maggie Gyllenhaal’s 2021 film, The Lost Daughter.

For those who don’t remember (or haven’t seen the film), The Lost Daughter has two timelines. The first one in the past features Jessie Buckley playing a stressed-out young mother before she abandons her children for three years. The second one has Olivia Colman playing the older version, still grappling with her decision to leave her children all those years ago.

I absolutely loved this film for this complicated female character at the center of it — one whose actions, yes, might not be likable but are human and understandable given the circumstances. But of course, the buzz at film festivals was that men hated it. During The Lost Daughter‘s Oscar campaign, the one opinion that kept coming up was: “It has an unlikable female lead.”

I thought about this as I watched Timothee Chalamet play the relentless, narcissistic, and at times irredeemable character at the center of Josh Safdie’s critically acclaimed film. Guarded with his tenacity (for table tennis — of all sports), Marty has a one-track mind. He knocks up his best friend but denies the paternity, lies and steals his way to get to his next match, and never appears grateful for any of the opportunities he receives, always wanting more. Even in the final shot of the film, when he finally accepts his role as a father, it only comes after he wins the big table tennis championship, after he gets his way.

But no awards pundits or critics have said that Chalamet won’t win the Oscar for playing this sort of character (if anything, they chastise the actor’s promotional stunts as unlikable). Some reviews have called Marty an “ambitious idiot” or a “bad boy hustler” — which feels akin to when the police describe dangerous twentysomething white men as “boys.” Other fans have directly discussed Marty being unlikable, but that he always feels the consequences of his actions (I would debate that he always seems to come out on top).

I’ve been bracing myself for the onslaught of film bro talk surrounding Marty Supreme, for its heightened tension and exceptional editing (which it has both), but mostly for ignoring the fact that Marty the character is an asshole. If he were a woman, they’d hate him. Remember that two years ago, Annette Bening’s “unlikable” portrayal made Nyad an Oscar punching bag — when Diana Nyad has a similar one-track mind to Marty Mauser.

I’m all for unlikable characters in movies, but let’s make it an even playing field. There’s room at the Oscars for male and female asshole characters.