Review: Malcolm & Marie
Malcolm & Marie is really good at asking hard questions, but maybe not so good at answering them. While it’s not entirely reasonable to expect a film to be able to answer all of the questions it poses, at the very least it does not need to beat viewers over the head with half-assed answers via dramatic shouting matches between the two main (and only) characters in the film.
John David Washington and Zendaya are some of the most talented, young actors in Hollywood right now and in theory are best positioned to play these characters. Malcolm is a disgruntled director who is celebrating the success of his most recent project and Marie is his muse - the woman whose story he tried to tell in his film. But the problem is, their relationship to his art and each other is messy. He feels entitled. She feels snubbed. And they both have harsh criticisms stored up for film critics. This would be all well and good if the writing supported a well-thought out dialogue about these issues, but instead it meanders and leaves a lot of loose ends untied.
While it’s beautiful to look at and Washington and Zendaya clearly have some chemistry to play off of, Malcolm & Marie is one claustrophobic, shouting match you can skip.