Zendaya’s New Movie Isn’t Good

If I’m honest, the main reason Netflix Malcolm and Marie, a movie that I started and stopped no less than five times before finishing it, piqued my interest was its aesthetic, which seemed like an obvious homage to Mike Nichols’ iconic 1966 film Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. I thought I was in for a feast.

As Woolf, Malcolm and Marie is shot in black and white and presents some trouble. It was written and directed by Sam Levinson, the man behind Euphoria, the hit HBO show that follows the lives of angry teenagers. Much of the story revolves around its titular characters, played by John David Washington and Zendaya, a couple who do nothing to solve the evils of their toxic relationship. Sounds interesting, right? Well, since its release last Friday, the film has been seriously skinned and, as of this writing, sits at a dismal 58% rate on Rotten Tomatoes.

Shot in July 2020 during the first few months of its forties, the film grew out of conversations Zendaya had with Levinson, specifically about “life for the past two years, about collaboration, about portrayal, about the industry. cinematic, ”Levinson said in a recent joint interview with Zendaya. (According to Deadline, Zendaya had “begged Levinson to write a content movie that she could fit into before starting her next Spider Man movie. ”) But while the film is certainly watchable, and has been the subject of numerous memes before, it quickly became apparent that this was just a surface mimicry of old Hollywood greatness, weighed down by a script – with too many ideas that aren’t sufficiently considered – that does its actors, who do their best, absolutely no favors.

The film begins with the couple returning home after the premiere of Malcolm’s film. Malcolm remembers how the night played out, including how captivating the reviews were, but it’s clear that Marie, his muse and romantic partner, is upset. After some back and forth, Marie reveals that during her speech, Malcolm did not thank her, a search made even worse by the fact that her film was based on her life, as a woman dealing with drug addiction at the adolescence and in his twenties. From the moment Marie reveals this, the seams of their relationship begin to unravel. “It’s psychotic to think that forgetting to thank is symbolic of something other than legitimately forgetting to thank you,” Malcolm said defensively. “Malcolm, you thanked 1,200 fucking people,” Marie replies.

This bitter exchange is just one example of several littered throughout the film, where the couple verbally break up, in a very painful way to see. But the story never really takes off. Their arguments play on an endless loop and are punctuated with long, exhausting soliloquies (mostly by the character of Washington) that seem like work to be done – and I’m just a spectator! For example, there’s a scene where Malcolm tries to take a reviewer on task, someone repeatedly referred to as the “White Lady of the LA Times”. Marie chuckles at first as Malcolm runs out of declaiming exhaustion, but later she begins to yawn as he – for what really feels like 10 minutes – denounces the critics and their interpretation of the art. “You’re the reason they do this stale, safe, stagnant, turgid fucking shit in the first place!” Yells Malcolm. He ends his cope by saying that he hopes the writer, who actually wrote a positive review of his film, ends up getting “fucking carpal tunnel until his hands atrophy and cramps and she can’t write crazy fucking trash like that anymore! ” He then falls on the sofa, panting.

The scene really looks like self-involved frustrations. Levinson, who is white, tries to get by. There’s another line in the movie where Malcolm says, “The fact that Barry Jenkins isn’t gay – that’s what made it Moonlight so universal? As a filmmaker, Malcolm believes that a film is a presentation of how one interprets reality. His constant contempt for critics stems from the way they engage with his work. He gets furious to talk about critics who consider other factors, like the race of the main character or, say, the gender of the filmmaker, when examining his art. (As Malcolm reads the review, the reviewer writes that he “reveled in a woman’s trauma” by including a scene where the main character appears shirtless. Marie, who moments before that reminded her partner that the review is good, sides with the reviewer, saying, “I’m sure she just didn’t think nudity was necessary.”)

“You can’t hang everything on identity,” Malcolm said in his incredibly long response. “You can’t say I brilliantly subverted this trope because I’m black, but I fell for this one because I’m a fucking man!” Levinson apparently tries to argue that the identity of the filmmaker is irrelevant, but the rhetoric quickly turns into ineffective whataboutism.

And that’s the main problem with the film. It’s bright and fun to watch, but overall it feels half-baked. The film appeared to be one of the most remarkable works of art produced during the pandemic. Two people who are solving their problems inside their home with nowhere to go has been a lot like life in much of the country for a year. But because the movie was in such a rush – it was written in six days and filmed in two weeks – the characters never get past caricature.

Washington and Zendaya are credited as producers and the screenplay had comments from managers, but there’s something about their relationship that doesn’t seem believable. In Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Taylor and Burton, a real couple at the time, lived their roles so well that the characters really feel like real people. In Malcolm and Marie, we often get the impression that Washington is overreacting, which at times seems like a desperate attempt to sound deep. Zendaya has a few bright spots, but there are a few times her role feels like a retreading of what she’s done. Euphoria. And while this movie doesn’t necessarily show anything we haven’t seen of her before, she is still a force to be reckoned with. Zendaya fans were eager to see her in something new, but the film drew criticism for its portrayal of the couple’s unhealthy relationship.

Movie critic Clarisse Loughrey appreciated the film for its flawless portrayal of damaging relationships, and critics should avoid “sounding as solipsistic as Malcolm himself.” Writer David Dennis Jr. didn’t see it that way, calling the film “the endless reel of a man terrorizing a woman who was emotionally trapped in a house, unable to escape.” The poisonous relationships have been the basis of a lot of amazing art, but it would have been more powerful if the film explored the relationship beyond the cheap slurs the couple hurled at each other. Malcolm and Marie would also have been better served by deepening the power imbalance between the two, as writer Candice Frederick recently pointed out in a review for Elle. Marie’s story is essentially stolen from her by her partner and yet the film presents the two as if they were on an equal footing.

To quote the character of Elizabeth Taylor, Martha Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, “I am the Mother of the Earth, and you are all flops.” Malcolm and Marie, at first glance, may have the veneer of a great movie, but it’s really a nothing burger disguised as steak. ●