Review - Malcolm and Marie

Writing a review of Malcolm and Marie, even in my amateur capacity, feels like a slightly futile gesture. It's a film constructed around how pointless film critics are and how they'll almost always be more dedicated to showing off to other film critics than in actually giving the film they just watched a fair shake. If you've seen the trailer for Malcolm and Marie, you might be shocked to realise that's what the film is about, which is fair, especially since it also isn't really about that. On a basic level, it's about a couple, who return from the premiere of Malcolm's new movie. Marie is upset because she wasn't mentioned in his speech and so she has a bone to pick with him. That's it. This is a movie about pretty people dealing with petty problems, a subgenre of film I'm pretty fond of. The problem with Malcolm and Marie though is that it isn't just that, it's also trying to be some great thesis statement on film, filmmakers and how we receive films. 

We reached a runtime of over 100 minutes (which feels like more), with a feeling that nothing new had been learnt, gained or felt.

Despite both those premises being seemingly simple, there isn't enough room in the film for both to exist, as we veer wildly from a scene about Marie's troubled past into a scene about how much Malcolm loves Spike Lee. Again, this is part of the problem for me; they're just scenes. While I'm watching Before Sunrise, I don't think to myself "ah, and now we have reached the next scene, in which our characters are talking about their previous sexual partners", I think about what a nice time I'm having with two people whose company I love. Malcolm and Marie did not elicit that same feeling, merely laying out a series of scenes until we reached a runtime of over 100 minutes (which feels like more), with a feeling that nothing new had been learnt, gained or felt, for the characters or the audience.

There are exactly two actors in Malcolm and Marie, so there's a fair bit of expectation on the shoulders of John David Washington and Zendaya to do well. The difference in their names epitomises to me the difference in their performances. JDW is giving what you would probably call a full-throated performance, which is a wordy way of saying he shouts a lot. Like, a lot. If you were annoyed that you couldn't hear much of his dialogue in Tenet then fear not, you're going to get every syllable loud and clear. That can be fine, but it meant I just couldn't be interested in Malcolm as anything more than a caricature. There are moments where he lowers his power and shows vulnerability, where I finally do care! And then, almost immediately, he is shouting or dancing or screaming again and I lose all interest. 

Zendaya, on the other hand, plays it pretty quiet for most of the film. Marie does a lot of sitting and listening to Malcolm and the beauty of cinema is that through that silence, you can read whatever you want into her facial expressions. When she is talking, she builds her anger slowly and subtly, meaning that I actually gave a shit about what she was saying. JDW is by no means bad in this, his performance is just strange and pales in comparison to Zendaya's, who carries this whole film. It's the kind of performance that, if she doesn't get nominated at the Oscars will cause a bunch of people to scream that she has been snubbed. She won't have been, it just feels like she was, because her work here is the thing that gives the film most of its emotional weight.

Sam Levinson is lucky that he has quality actors who are compelling to listen to even when they're spouting tripe.

On a technical level... I don't know man, I'm tired at this point. I guess it's fine? I am a simple man who loves his trash and so I see a modern film in black and white, I immediately assume it's at least a little bit classy. It looks good! It sounds good too, with a mix of pre-existing music and some original stuff from Labrinth, which feels like an updating of scores from films like Alfie. It's fun, though out of place at times. The worst technical aspect however is the dialogue. I haven't read the script, so I'm not going to come out and say that it's a bad script, but the words that were said on screen sounded silly and I think I'm allowed a fair jab at them. Sam Levinson is lucky that he has quality actors who are compelling to listen to even when they're spouting tripe. It is the kind of tripe that would not feel out of place in some kind of perfume advert. 

Oh, what a convenient little segue, this shouldn't have been a film! Someone funnier than me described Malcolm and Marie as "if Marriage Story was a Calvin Klein ad", which feels like exactly the place of this. It feels like one of those over produced short adverts that companies make with movie stars, where everyone afterward says "man, that was so good, they should make that an actual movie!" Almost always, the reality is that no, adverts should not be made into feature length films, because they will become Malcolm and Marie; beautiful films with beautiful people that say absolutely nothing of value.

I don't think Malcolm and Marie is a terrible film, I just think it's a waste of time.

When watching the film, my main emotional response was boredom, so it's weird that in writing this review that turned into anger. I don't think Malcolm and Marie is a terrible film, I just think it's a waste of time, the cinematic equivalent of "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed". It feels odd to me that a film that clearly has so much to say ends up saying nothing at all. There are things that are good about it, sure, but why watch a film that averages out to just below par? Watch something brilliant, or something terrible. Everyone watching Netflix seems to have the right idea, choosing either to watch a daft Nic Cage thriller or Mean Girls this weekend. So yeah, if you have Netflix and want to watch this, whatever. It's just your time you're wasting, which feels like such a useless commodity right now. Personally though, I ran out of shits to give long before the film ended and am giving Malcolm and Marie a