Think of Zendaya’s Mac and Cheese at Malcolm & Marie

Malcolm and Marie, the arty Zendaya and John David Washington film shot in secret with Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, arrives on Netflix on February 5. While the plot details are kept under wraps, we can at least deduce from the trailer that it focuses on Zendaya’s character’s tumultuous relationship with a lover whose name has all the letters. M, A, VS in his name. We’re talking, of course, about that fickle late-night lover: boxed mac and cheese.

In the trailer, Zendaya cooks macaroni and cheese in sleek, modern California cuisine at a home away from town, while battling John David Washington – a tertiary figure, it is assumed, after macaroni – and wearing a frankly gorgeous dress with lots of exposed skin. There is a danger interaction in the act, given that she has to boil water, and I feel the risks she took on set, given that I have a scar pouring myself hot tea on myself while wearing a tank top earlier this week. “Mystery,” Zendaya announces in a voiceover, pouring pasta from a can into a pot of boiling water. “The unknown is what sustains the tension in a relationship.”

Then, incongruously, the trailer shows Zendaya opening a stick of butter, which feels like it’s only done a few minutes later when the pasta is done and the cheese sauce is ready to go. be prepared. I can only hope this is meant to reveal that Marie has a weird cooking process or that the continuity error is corrected in the final cut. Anyway.

As Marie argues with Malcolm, who insists she is angry – Yes, of course, why make canned mac and cheese in a calm emotional state? – she pours the macaroni in a colander, bounces them several times and looks at Malcolm. The sound of hot water hissing elsewhere implies that the two are planning to pair their mac and cheese with tea (or that the trailer editor thought the whistle sound would be cool – either or the other).

It’s a deeply glamorous act that raises many questions. Foremost among them: Where did she put the pasta after taking the colander away from the sink? Does she use another pot or bowl for the cheese sauce? Why, when that first casserole looked so beautiful and expensive? Married! So much waste in the kitchen. I guess that’s another key character trait.

From there, the trailer ditches the mac and cheese for an intense black-and-white look at the relationship dynamics of this human couple that I care less about. But then! We return briefly to mac and cheese when we see Marie carrying a pan and spinning around with Malcolm in a triptych.

It is clearly a religious experience for them. And it provides an opportunity to take a closer look at the specific brand that Zendaya is brewing, which I zoomed in for the sake of in-depth mac-and-cheese journalism. At first, I had assumed that Malcolm and Marie would be Annie’s people, because they seem a little pretentious, but that big roni curl is pretty unmistakable: it’s a Kraft box.

Here. Malcolm and Marie is a seductive ode to the fun of making quick and inexpensive pasta dishes, which comes to you on Netflix, presumably sponsored by the Kraft Heinz company.