This black and white two-hander, featuring  John David Washington (as Malcolm) and Zendaya (as Marie), dropped a few days ago but unlike Sam Levinson, we'll keep it short.


An interesting opening shot. Good enough to inspire a neo-Golden Age Hollywood movement? Maybe not. But the visible nod to the pictures of classic cinema (12 Angry Men, Sunset Blvd., to name a couple) aroused interest, especially among fans of Old Hollywood films, as to whether a highly creative work of art was about to unfold. What followed next was even more promising. Malcolm and Marie return from the premiere of Malcolm's latest movie, which knocked out the critics, and jump almost immediately into an intellectual discussion. They talk about the interpretation of black art by white critics in a predominantly white male industry and in the background, James Brown is singing "Down And Out In New York City".

With excellent editing, the camera seamlessly follows both characters as they dance, sing, make small talk and cook mac and cheese in their spacious, minimalist Malibu residence. Except for Zendaya stepping outside to smoke like a parody of Robin Wright in House Of Cards, all is well. John David Washington is smooth, stepping to the jazz music, and you can tell he's dreamed of doing this scene on screen for a long time. You're almost dancing for joy with him. The 35mm shots are brilliant. Malcolm & Marie is excellent filmmaking..... for 12 minutes.





Something happens in the 13th minute that is a foreshadowing of events to come. Malcolm begins to chant "Marie, Marie Marie", asking for a confrontation by following her around the house, nagging like a child, and when Marie eventually turns around and says "I promise you, nothing productive is going to be said tonight", we should have known. The valid subject about the place of black films in Hollywood was forgotten and relationship sensibilities become the bone of contention. Marie admits that she is angry and the reason is because Malcolm forgot to thank her in his speech. An unforgivable mistake apparently. Malcolm apologizes repeatedly and each time Marie forgives him, only to change her mind one minute later and begin the argument all over again. It doesn't take long before Malcolm asks Marie "what do you want?".

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They begin to exchange monologues, from the kitchen, to the bathroom, to the courtyard, trying to outperform each other with the most hurtful statements as the drama shamelessly spirals into pettiness Olympics. Outside, Malcolm screams at Marie in pure exasperation and when the camera lingers on his face after Marie has stormed out, it looks like John David Washington, playing Malcolm, is actually wondering how the film has descended to this level. 

It was a great idea in my head.

At this point it becomes painfully obvious that the film, up to this point, is a recreation of a series of confrontations which the director, Sam Levinson, has experienced in the past. But he takes things a step further. Malcolm goes on a bitter rant against a positive review of his movie because it is posted by a white female writer (emphasis on female) from the LA Times who had the nerve to criticize his previous film.

 Huffing and puffing about the message of cinema and electricity, it is easy to see that Malcom is merely being used by the director, both as a weapon and a shield to visualize a direct argument with this specific LA Times critic. In fact, Sam Levinson's last movie, Assassination Nation, drew an unfavorable review from a certain LA Times writer who just happens to be a woman. Coincidence? I think not. 

He decides to disguise his new film as a work of art liable to be misunderstood since film writers, with college degrees, lack the vocabulary, apart from "authenticity", to critique films made by marginalized artists with a certain gender or racial identity. Wrong move. For one, Sam Levinson, (son of Barry Levinson, the legendary director of Rain Man and Bugsy) is a racially privileged white man, has a college degree and is therefore a perpetual beneficiary of the dominant system he seeks to criticize. Even worse, he uses a black actor to vent his white frustration and expects to get sympathy or applause from us?



Within one hour, Malcolm & Marie goes from defending black art in passing to becoming an active exhibition of audacious caucasity. It unravels as nothing more than a subliminal of female partners and critics who the director harbours resentment against.  You have to feel sorry for the lead actors at this point. Have they realized, perhaps a little too late, that they've been swindled? At nearly two hours long, the movie is a talking marathon and simply serves as a visual recreation of clapback monologues which the director would have wished to say in real-life arguments but had forgotten to say on the spot. Instead he would have you believe this is a mysterious quality of his art which is full of "heart and electricity". But where is the heart of this film?

 Malcolm dismisses Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing as overrated just because it was revolutionary for its time. When he later expresses a contradictory desire to see black filmmakers, instead of white, British ones, bringing a revolution to modern filmmaking, the emptiness and hypocrisy of his words, which echo the opinions of the director, ring hollow in the still and quiet Malibu air. The scene is as bad as an accident. And even though a couple of other scenes like the knife scene, and Zendaya's final monologue in the bedroom, are quality, at the end there is nothing to take away except the cool, jazz music and maybe Zendaya getting her ass ate. As a pandemic movie, Malcolm & Marie is a melodrama that is too long. As a work of art, Malcolm & Marie is a tragedy.