Mark Reviews Movies: MALCOLM & MARIE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 28, 2021

There are really two stories in writer/director Sam Levinson's Malcolm & Marie. One follows the long trajectory of an all-night argument between a romantic couple. The other is a treatise on the state of filmmaking and film criticism, seen from the perspective of a character who's either a stand-in for Levinson, a wholly or partially fictional representation of an egotistical filmmaker whose opinions are more reactionary than grounded in some well-considered argument, or speaking a bunch of nonsense because his feelings have been hurt.

From the film itself, the second option seems to be the most likely one. There will surely, though, be a lot of critics who take the opinions presented at face value, assume they're direct digs from Levinson, and take it a bit personally. The ensuing process should be fun, at least.

Malcolm (John David Washington), the filmmaker in this story, definitely doesn't hold back. He names names—or at least the names of publications and some general traits about the critics who either really or fictionally write for those outlets. He calls them out for their perceived pedantry, hypocrisy, lack of knowledge about form within the medium, tendency to try to simplify the meaning of a film to a most basic political point, and attempts to fit within a current cultural zeitgeist, instead of just taking a film as it is and analyzing how it functions as art.

Yes, there will be no small amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth within some critical circles on account of these scenes. Here's the thing, though: Maybe Malcolm, as mad as he is in this moment and as questionable as his motives for the multiple tirades may be, has a point. Maybe the likely outrage or dismissal of these lengthy monologues about the state of film criticism would be as reactionary as Malcolm's attitude. Maybe some might react to these scenes as a personal attack because there's some truth to what Malcolm has to say.

All of these thoughts and hypotheticals, of course, will seem like unnecessary inside baseball to everyone who watches or is thinking about watching this film and who doesn't write about movies from a critical perspective. Even so, it should give one an idea about the purpose and the approach of Levinson's film. It is very much a case of inside baseball, just as much as it's about a relationship on the brink of disaster.

Levinson has two audiences in mind here, and that's likely why the film feels like two very different stories in one. For everyone, there's the story of Malcolm and his girlfriend Marie (Zendaya), who arrive at a house, provided by the production company of the former's film, after the premiere of Malcolm's most recent project. It was a hit with everyone in attendance—a general audience, folks in the business, and critics alike.

Malcolm is thrilled. Marie is not. As it turns out, Malcolm gave a speech to introduce the movie, and in the process, he forgot to thank Marie. She lets her irritation with that fact drop like bomb, before she walks out of the living room and after she makes dinner for Malcolm. It's a double whammy of righteous frustration and showing that she's still going to be a better person, despite how angry she might be at the moment.

The whole film is little more than a series of arguments, prompted by some seemingly off-hand point of conversation, by a weaponized music choice from each one's phone, by a lot of stewing over things that were said in the previous fight, or by letting loose some tidbit of information that one knows will hurt the other. Watching it, we're left without any real, constant sense of where our sympathies should lie.

Actually, Malcolm does come across almost exactly as Marie describes him (which would make it strange if any critics took what he has to say as some wholly legitimate, rationale case against them), and she is the one who tells her boyfriend, right before any of the arguing commences, that he should drop it. "Nothing good will come of it right now," Marie says, and that turns out to be more of a promise than a warning. She knows Malcolm too well.

That's the main story here, and it's raw, unfiltered, and mostly—to use a word that Malcolm despises when it comes to movies—authentic. There's a distinct rhythm to the fights and to the whole course of the late-night argument.

Levinson, with cinematographer Marcell Rév, shoots the entire film in black-and-white, with plenty of longer takes and close-ups and natural staging. It looks artificial, because Levinson wants us to be hyper-aware of his formal choices (That's another reason Malcolm talks shop so much, although the purpose of this awareness is pretty vague), but feels real, especially because Washington and Zendaya perform the material with such pointed, sometimes excruciatingly honest naturalism (Some of Levinson's more meta-level dialogue goes against the actors' work, but they're brief distractions).

The other story—about Malcolm's rants and Marie's counterpoints about filmmaking and criticism—has, perhaps, been discussed here enough already, but it is commendable how well Levinson fits these scenes into the broader depiction of this relationship. Malcolm has a point. Marie has a point, too, often siding with one fictional critic, whose errors and quirks Malcolm dissects and whose arguments about the way Malcolm portrays his female protagonist Marie defends. Looking at the film as it is, such discussions make Malcolm & Marie is a bit daring. It's encouraging us to assess why we're reacting to each choice the characters and Levinson make.

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