The patron saint of 2025 is . . . Gwyneth Paltrow?

If there’s one person who knows how to let a particularly awful year glide off her lithe, pilates-perfect back, it’s Gwyneth Paltrow. Whether she’s coining her divorce from Coldplay lead Chris Martin as a “conscious uncoupling” or forgetting which Marvel movies she made two-minute appearances in, the sometimes-acting, always-influencing Paltrow has made a career out of being nonchalant. Wriggling out of a year like 2025 seemingly unscathed is a novel skill, especially when a salacious biography about your life hits bookshelves. Yet, Paltrow makes it look like easy lifting, as if dodging the universe’s cerebral tortures were as low-effort as the #BoyfriendBreakfasts she’s taken to posting on Instagram. I suppose millions of dollars in the bank and another highly successful year for her lifestyle and wellness brand, Goop, makes being unbothered while making homemade lemongrass turkey sausage patties all the more simple. But as someone who has long considered Paltrow an icon in the f**k-it-and-do-what-you-want space, I know that she has endless, monotone wisdom to impart. When the going gets tough, the tough turn to the blonde.

I could try to combat inescapable existential dread by dyeing my hair. But the last time I had a gay guy breakdown and took to the Manic Panic powder bleach, a dermatologist had to intervene. So, instead, I will save myself the insurance copay and opt for the cheaper choice: studying the maneuvers of one Ms. Goop. For as out of touch with the common person as she can arguably be, Paltrow always seems to be in on the joke. She knows what people are saying about her because they’ve been saying it her whole life, and she’s well beyond the need to prove herself to anyone. That kind of confidence is aspirational, even impactful. I’ve always been a firm believer in faking it until you make it to such an extreme degree that your gumption becomes undeniable. Moxie moves mountains, and in a time when many of us are exhausted by celebrity influencing and mindless idol worship, Paltrow has maintained her enigmatic pull.

With a major role in Josh Safdie’s madcap ping-pong riot, “Marty Supreme,” Paltrow is rounding out the year with a bang, earning her last laugh against gossip hounds and Goop critics. It’s not just a sublime semi-comeback to the silver screen, but a terrifically winking companion piece to her existing brand. Here, Paltrow plays a glamorous and witty former movie star, Kay Stone, a part that is unquestionably close to home for the semi-retired actress. (Fitting, considering that Paltrow famously prefers not to share her home with anyone but herself.) And though the role may not exactly be a stretch, it’s only further evidence that Paltrow’s decision to pursue a life and career on her own terms was the right one, even if that career is being Gwyneth Paltrow.

That is, after all, a job that pays with little more effort than sitting down for what I’d assume is close to just an hour’s work. After an ill-timed kiss cam caught the data-operations tech company Astronomer’s former CEO, Andy Byron, smooching his colleague Kristin Cabot last summer at a Coldplay concert, the viral moment turned into an infidelity scandal for Astronomer. Enter Paltrow and Ryan Reynolds, whose production company, Maximum Effort, was contracted to create an advertisement starring Paltrow that reframed the public narrative. The one-minute spot cleverly capitalizes on the zeitgeist’s knowledge of Paltrow’s relationship to Martin and uses that joke to spin the conversation in another direction, highlighting the Astronomer product’s actual function.

What that function is, exactly, I’m still not entirely sure. Their website lost me somewhere between “scalable ETL pipelines” and “fine-grained scaling via our proprietary hypervisor.” But the product’s purpose doesn’t matter, at least not here. What’s important is that the ad was a win for Astronomer and, more critically, Paltrow. With her infamous vagina-scented candles and other absurd Goop-approved products and series, Paltrow’s own business has been the butt of the joke for too long. She’s become the face of our contemporary concept of “wellness” as an expensive, mystical and painfully white practice for the in-crowd. But even though Goop once sold a $30 gem-infused “psychic vampire repellent” aromatherapy spray, Paltrow’s not a snake oil saleswoman — at least to me. She’s always been about the search for something new, different and life-changing. Even if she rarely finds it, the pursuit is always interesting, and frankly, admirable. So when Paltrow jumped at the opportunity to comment on the cultural obsession du jour in her 60-second video, her willingness to align herself with a world she was once seen as too haughty to embrace helped soften her public perception. If the world was looking to extend its schadenfreude, Paltrow was all too happy to be the one to push it further.

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Goop has been active and expanding since 2008, and by now, modern — and especially younger — audiences know Paltrow more for being the woman who runs the wellness brand than for her years as a serious, Oscar-winning actor. Yet, for all of her work building an empire, Paltrow still has the innate ability to disappear into a character. Her work in “Marty Supreme” is simply luminescent, one of the year’s most charming and memorable supporting performances. Though she hasn’t had a film role of this size in well over a decade, Paltrow still performs with the care and specificity of an actor who truly cares for the work. (And, well, the ease of a nepo baby multiple generations over.) That Paltrow can go toe-to-toe with a star as bright as Timothée Chalamet and actively compete with his shine is a marvel. But, yet again, Paltrow makes this look deceptively simple.

From the first moments she glides across the frame, Paltrow is pulling focus. Both the viewer and Chalamet’s titular Marty Mauser can’t keep their eyes off her. Marty is enamored at first sight, but Kay Stone wants nothing to do with him. Yet, Kay sees something of herself in this twentysomething table tennis prodigy: wanton ambition and the thrill of the chase. Struggling to revitalize her career with a new stage play after a long break from acting altogether, Kay matches Marty’s hunger. Both of them want nothing more than to forge a path for themselves in their respective crafts — Marty’s just far more upfront about it.

(Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images) Gwyneth Paltrow looks

Safdie and co-writer Ronald Bronstein wisely tease the audience with just enough of Kay’s perspective, allowing her to feel like one of the film’s more realized and considered supporting characters. As she mounts this new play, we begin to truly care about whether or not it will be a successful venture; remarkable, considering that Marty’s journey is so frenetic and absorbing that, in any other film, deviating from the primary storyline would feel like a frivolous bore. Their paths intersect at all of the right times, supplying the viewer with an idea of who Kay is — aided by Paltrow’s real-life resemblance to the character — until we realize that what we’ve seen is merely a sketch.

When Kay gets a hold of the New York Times review of her play before it goes to print on opening night, her world falls apart. We see the pieces starting to crumble, but only a glimpse of this tragic sight. Already, Safdie is back on Marty, leaving Kay somewhere else entirely, reconciling her broken dreams and what may very well be the end of her professional career. At once, “Marty Supreme” confirms that everything we thought we knew about this character has been inferred. She has an entire tertiary life, operating parallel to Marty’s. Safdie doesn’t play this moment for laughs or shock. Rather, he encourages us to remember that nothing is ever quite what it seems, and that everyone — even the rich and famous — has an inner world and deeply rooted dreams that we know nothing about.

But it’s Paltrow who sells this bit. She knows just what it’s like to be loved, revered, misunderstood, mischaracterized, hated, shunned, laughed at and laughed with. She’s had her own fair share of flops and bad business decisions, as well as ample successes. And, through it all, she’s managed to come out on top, not just because she’s a nepo baby or because she’s rich, but because she’s happily weathered the storm. Maybe she’s not the classic image of defiance, but she’s certainly a modern one. In a year when little turned out the way we hoped it might, it’s nice to be thrown for a loop by someone unexpected.