Sam Levinson knows what gift he has in his “Malcolm & Marie” stars, especially Zendaya. Levinson’s highly stylized “Euphoria” is nothing more than a temple of stylistic excess, but Zendaya’s amazing talent holds its center; it is that very truth.
Here she can do just as much to cut through the studied glossy Levinson designs in her role and the role of co-star John David Washington (“BlacKkKlansman”), two highly skilled actors who no longer want to speak for the artist. the art and its message work through it.
This may be because the message at the heart of ‘Malcolm & Marie’ is easy, vain and demanding, an attempt to sell a loud, grumpy temper tantrum over artistic work as a soulful debate shot on the 35mm film is.
I will admit that the story is brilliantly seductive black-and-white from the moment the credits roll. swallow, with a sweep of the California Carmel Desert against wide glass windows of the modern architectural home the couple calls home.
They return to the successful premiere of a film directed by Malcolm of Washington, and from his self-magnifying speech and dance in the living room, many of which are filmed from the outside, he knows he killed it. From there, Washington begins a small speech about the shallowness of critics who read out reflections on his identity as a black man in a film he saw as a wonderful story about an interesting character.
In the course of this protest, he cites a list of great directors with whom he knows he can be compared by the white critics who judge the film and discuss a special concentrate vitriol for a female critic at the LA Times. Mention of this critic bounces again and again to the surface as he traces to her coat hanger.
All the while, Marie stews quietly as she makes a pot of macaroni and cheese, and though she says she’s hungry and tired, it’s he who devours it. (Metaphor warning!) After finally pulling his head out of his rectum and asking why she’s not angry with and jumping for joy, she points out that he forgot to thank her – a supervision that is particularly hurtful considering that his film coup took place. from his co-op of Marie’s life story.
Netflix wants to entice us by advertising this couple’s story as a romance, and the film itself as a love letter for filmmaking, and if you’ve seen enough of such film letters, you should recognize the name as a warning.
In practice, “Malcolm & Marie” is not one of these things, although the actors do their best to argue Levinson’s naked case with himself: Malcolm, the director of Thirty, is the screaming, self-important manifestation of the artist’s ego and confidence in his vision, the arrogant shadow that every successful creator must cherish in order to continue. Marie, his 20-year-old addicted girlfriend, is the wounded side who demands to be seen and questions his originality, as a judge and jailer.
It is the personification of the inner struggle of the artist, which proves that seeing such internal battles is carnal, not as interesting as one would think.
The writer and director made this film in the midst of the closing and with a dismantled crew, explaining the location and surroundings, and not having to explain any of them.
Similar to ‘Euphoria’, the aesthetic quality of ‘Malcolm & Marie’ is sublime. Washington and Zendaya are flawlessly enlightened as they glide through the work of architectural porn, where they look outside or stumble elegantly, furiously past the clutter of trees.
Rev achieves a striking balance of wide atmospheric shots with a tight grip on the actor’s face. Together, the footage magnifies some bloodied, soul-addicted, and dedicated performances that should draw our attention. Their combined thunder is frustratingly dampened by the overwhelming lack of true emotion, an essential element that leaves in Levinson’s strenuous effort to establish a kind of intellectual stance in defense of the artist’s right to create separately from his identity. sail.
Levinson’s other work, “Euphoria”, does the opposite – and the two-hour one-off episodes indeed illustrate how brilliant the filmmaker can be when he looks beyond himself while using the authenticity lived by his experiences. He achieves this with the December episode ‘Rue’ by stepping back and allowing Zendaya to extend her character’s extreme fatigue and sadness to fill the mostly empty eatery where the hour’s action takes place.
‘Rue’ only asks the viewer for an hour and scrapes every last bit of feeling out of the bottle. “Malcolm & Marie” wants you to watch two people fight for 45 minutes over issues that most people no longer care about.
I admit that this is a damning critique on a film whose central figure makes damning critics his hill to die for. But even without Malcolm’s obsessive side on a furious exhibition, there is little else in the character that would make a person sit through the full story if they could fetch even a quarter of it.
However, let us pretend, as Washington’s intensely solipsistic character does, that as a critic and not as a creator, I have the technical vocabulary, the vision, and the ability to separate the artist’s identity from the work in which he works. Let’s assume that the view is not of the professional judge who is a tumbler of the gifted Pappy Van Winkle (because those who write do not, can not afford it ……) around in my glass while I strives to reflect on the shortcomings of this film.
Instead, let’s watch this from your normal Jane or Joe looking for a movie that will speak to their soul about romance and art, and hopefully transport you to another place. If this is what you’re after, you should warn that ‘Malcolm & Marie’ will only make you feel trapped.
“Malcolm & Marie” is currently streaming on Netflix.