Review: In the Netflix film ‘Malcolm & Marie’ a young Hollywood couple stops being polite and stars getting real

In the opening moments of Netflix’s “Malcolm & Marie,” a filmmaker and his girlfriend return home late one night after the premiere of his new movie. The screening was a success and Malcolm (John David Washington) is riding high. He cues up some James Brown (“Down and Out in New York City”) and pours himself a drink, unaware — or uninterested — that Marie (Zendaya) is noticeably subdued when she pads into the kitchen to cook for him.

She is lost in her thoughts and something is eating at her. It takes Malcolm a beat or three to catch on as he nuzzles her neck while she stands there, unmoved, in front of a pot of boiling pasta, still wearing her high-end gown, but soon enough she reveals the source of her consternation: You stood up and thanked everyone but me, despite the fact that it’s more or less my story of addiction you’re telling on screen.

And they’re off.

You can find all kinds of real-world stories online of award winners who forgot to thank their significant others and you think, what’s that conversation like when they get home? This is “Malcolm & Marie’s” entry point.

That the film — from writer-director Sam Levinson (creator of the HBO series “Euphoria,” on which Zendaya also stars) — is shot in black and white and transpires over the course of a single night may bring to mind the boozy verbal powerslam that is “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” But Levinson strips down that already minimalistic template even further (no house guests here to distract from the task at hand) and simply lets Malcolm and Marie go at it.

I’ll take a talky movie any day over pretty much anything else, especially when there’s the potential for people to stop being polite and start getting real, to borrow a phrase from that old reality show. (The film was written and shot during the early months of the pandemic, with the simplified logistics of a two-hander in mind.)

You’re always revealed when you live with someone. They will call you out on your bull while projecting their own insecurities onto you. They know your weak spots, and maybe they don’t fight fair. You might be guilty of the same. It’s a vortex of anxiety to witness these fights in real life, but within the safe confines of fiction I can’t think of anything better, especially when the writing is sharp and perceptive. I can’t say that’s fully the case here; the movie is a collection of monologues rather than a verbal do-si-do. Even so, I liked a lot of it. Early on, the camera is outside looking in through the couple’s windows and it’s as if we’re eavesdropping. That kind of cinematic intimacy is a huge draw, even if things are about to get ugly.

Malcolm and Marie may not be terribly clever in their put-downs, but there are moments here that made me laugh. “I don’t want to fight tonight,” he tells her. “Neither do I,” she replies as she grabs an enormous knife to whack into a stick of butter. Malcolm is fundamentally a ridiculous person — so much of what comes out of his mouth is tiresome (has nobody ever told this man no?) — and Washington’s performance is such a wonderful balance of irrational flashes of anger coupled with the character’s innate foolishness (a search for his wallet becomes a briefly epic tantrum that is perfect in its comedic timing). I’m fascinated that this man wears his outside shoes inside the house for nearly the entire span of the movie, as if it never occurred to him just how gross that might be. You sense a lot of things have never occurred to him. He is riddled with insecurities and the coping mechanisms he’s developed seem to manifest in obnoxious ways. He cannot see who he is, nor does he seem particularly interested in doing so, even when he’s sitting directly across from a mirror that reflects all his absurdity back to him as he shovels forkfuls of mac and cheese into his maw. If he only bothered to look up.

Marie is a different story. She is prone to introspection and self-loathing, but not so much that she’s willing to tolerate Malcolm’s crap. It’s unclear what she actually does with her time; she once had aspirations to act but has abandoned those to be Malcolm’s muse and domestic helpmate and you sense so much emptiness to this existence. Zendaya carries herself with a deadpan confidence early on, wearing that metallic dress like armor and her hair and makeup like a protective mask, only for it all to dissolve and melt away once she steps into the bathtub. She emerges exposed and, compellingly, willing to be vulnerable. Zendaya recently won an Emmy for “Euphoria,” where she plays a teenager in search of some kind of emotional anchor, and it is equally thrilling to see her explore similar themes playing someone closer to her own age in her mid-20s. Marie is a woman who is angry and needy, and not in ways that seem unreasonable. She is lost, but the path to finding her way seems unlikely to include Malcolm. (Run, Marie. Run.)

The performances are terrific, but to fight in monologue is to fight in a vacuum, which means their declarations feel raw without actually scratching the surface. Much has been made of Malcolm’s rant about film critics — it comes about midway through the film and works as an extended intermission of sorts — and his ire is focused mainly on an unnamed “white woman from the L.A. Times.” Much to his annoyance, she writes about his film within a framework of Black cinema and focuses on the political dimensions therein.

I don’t have a problem with Malcolm teeing off on critics, whether to note the overall whiteness of the profession (true! And I wish more creatives and white critics would speak on this publicly.) or to point out when writers have their heads up their you know what; there are mediocre people in any industry and entertainment journalism is no exception. It’s really up to you, the viewer, to interpret whether this section is satirical or a vehicle for Levinson’s own point of view. Maybe it’s a little of both.

What ultimately undermines Malcolm’s arguments is his futile wish that his film avoid any kind of political label; the reality is that all films are political, regardless of genre or story or who is making them. Choices are being made and that will always be political. That we as journalists tend to view white stories as neutral and apolitical is probably the deeper issue.

Malcolm insists that “cinema doesn’t need to have a message” and “need” is such a funny word in this context, as if filmmakers had a choice. Any creative endeavor is saying something, and rather hilariously Malcolm ends up voicing that sentiment without even realizing it. Marie insists on authenticity in storytelling and Malcolm is quick to challenge that: “Recreating reality doesn’t make something interesting,” he tells her, “it’s about your interpretation of reality, what you feel about reality, how you convey reality, what you reveal about reality.” My dude, Malcolm, all those choices are political!

Ultimately the substance of his argument is less interesting than why he’s making it, and I wish his knee jerk defensiveness was explored or challenged more because it’s also so deeply human. Both characters may be a mess, but Malcolm is plainly full of it.

Here’s an interesting coda: If you look up Oscar winners who blanked on their significant others in their acceptance speeches, most of those couples have since split up. I don’t know if these unconscious snubs are a harbinger of deeper problems in a relationship, and “Malcolm & Marie” isn’t weighing in on that either. Levinson’s marriage to producer Ashley Levinson seems to have survived his own slip-up when he forgot to thank her at the premiere of “Assassination Nation,” on which they worked. (She’s a producer on this film, as well.) Even so, it’s hard to see anything but a toxically ever after in Malcolm and Marie’s future if they remain together.

“Malcolm & Marie” — 3 stars

MPAA rating: R

Running time: 1:05

Premieres: Feb. 5 on Netflix

nmetz@chicagotribune.com

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