REVIEW: Malcolm & Marie

 

Sam Levinson's new film, Malcolm and Marie, drops on Netflix and select theaters today--just early enough to not be this year's Valentine's Day offering. In this case that's a good thing. Don't misunderstand, the film hits a sweet spot, but that spot is decidedly far away from the likes of Life as We Know it and While You Were Sleeping. An intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, the movie displays love in all its cracks and contours and bites at the audience just as aggressively as it bites at its own stars.

Malcolm & Marie finds our titular characters, longtime lovers, coming home after the press premiere of Malcolm's new feature film. Malcolm is an artist convinced that his work transcends human description. Marie is a recovering addict and an actress who walked away from the camera before she ever found the spotlight. As they await the onslaught of reactions from the critics, subterranean tensions between them stir, erupting in emotional outbursts that threaten to leave their relationship shattered and strewn across the polished floor.

Our titular characters are the only characters the appear in the film, (though "that white lady who writes for the LA Times" earns so many shoutouts that Levinson might as well have let us hear her side of the story), and so the responsibility falls squarely on stars John David Washington and Zendaya to carry the film. Good news: they never miss a beat. Washington's fire collides with Zendaya's ice in a way that is always charged and never melodramatic. Both Washington and Zendaya know that an artful stink-eye can be every bit as withering as a shouting match. 

The seed of discord between them is Malcolm forgetting to mention Marie in his speech. This plotpoint occurs offscreen but becomes the throughline of the argument that will carry them well into the night. In broad strokes, you can see what twists and turns this prolonged duel of wills is going to take, but the texture of the conflict only becomes clear as you put in the time in the kiln and watch the intimate details Malcolm and Marie reveal themselves.

I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the lovers' quarrel didn't occasionally veer into the excessive. Early on Marie derails a moment of understanding after Malcolm plays on the stereo the wrong apology song and we're plunged into another exchange of profanity-laced rancor, and you're just left thinking the movie could have ended right there if Malcolm had only put on The Greatest Showman. You're about halfway through the film before the signposts of genuine love start to break the surface and you're sure that, yes, you do hope these two will figure it out. It's to the credit of the script that the tension between the lovers grows more tolerable as the conflict escalates.

If the performances manage to feel true to life, the rhythm of the conversation doesn't always. Midway through the film, for example, Malcolm goes straight from comparing Marie to a twig (a twig he can break with one hand) to telling her that she is the only authentic part of his film. This he does basically in one breath. Each swell of emotion has either Malcolm or Marie launch into a prolonged sizzling monologue while the other patiently waits for his or her turn with the talking stick.

If Levinson pulls this off, it owes it in part to the creative photography of the film which casts a dreamlike glaze over the 106 minutes of runtime. The camera's fractured framing offers a window into the splintering psyches of Malcolm and Marie--the composition almost aggressively geometric, drawing out the divisions between the lovers into physical space. And why don't we see more films in black and white?

    As the reflections and retorts become more intimate and scathing, the audience starts to realize that what our lovers revile more than anything isn't being forgotten or underappreciated, but being understood--having their identity diagramed for easy comprehension and summarized in a monologue recited by the person who knows them best.

Wading through the angst between Malcolm and Marie, and between the audience and the characters, the film moves beyond easily sorted romantic platitudes and into something that might genuinely change the audience. 

Valentine's Day is only one day of the year anyway.

                --The Professor