"Malcolm & Marie" with Zendaya on Netflix: lots of glamor, little reality

Icon: enlarge

Culture of debate in purist black and white: Zendaya and John David Washington in »Malcolm & Marie«

Photo: Dominic Miller / Netflix

Right at the beginning you see Marie coming home in a stunning glitter dress and high heels, and the first thing she does is go to the toilet, pull up her dress and panties, sit on the bowl and pee.

Maximum glamor and unsavory everyday life combined in one scene.

One wished this scene could serve as a cipher.

Just as a critic wishes that there is a scene, preferably at the beginning, that contains the rest of the film "in nuce", so to speak.

Because then it is easier to come up with an interpretation.

Sometimes that's a bit lazy.

Icon: enlarge

Emotions rise and fall: Malcolm and Marie are lovers and sparring partners at the same time

Photo: Netflix

But with this film you have to say: It would have been great if it had been like that.

Because unfortunately in the episode the glamor outweighs the dirty reality, which makes the whole film weaker than it could be.

"Malcolm & Marie" is the new work by Sam Levinson, who already wrote the series "Euphoria" and was partly responsible as a director.

And like there, Zendaya plays the leading role in this film.

Your sparring partner - and this phrase goes well here, because the two really fight each other - is John David Washington, who was last seen how he saved the world in "Tenet".

There are no more actors.

Just the two.

The setting is just as puristic: a house, a little front yard.

100 minutes.

Black-and-white.

In this setting Levinson lets his characters attack each other, move away from each other, only to make them collide all the more violently.

Malcolm is a film director, Marie is his girlfriend, who is almost ten years his junior.

He's cool, she's beautiful.

They come back from the premiere of his first big film to the villa that the production company rented them.

The audience was thrilled.

The mood is great.

Actually.

But something is wrong with Marie.

Because: Malcolm didn’t consider you when giving the acceptance speech.

A quarrel is sparked, which builds up great and apparently calms down again, only to break out again even more violently.

It's about recognition, appreciation, jealousy.

Unfortunately not a masterpiece

Much like the jazz music playing in the background, the two figures move, seemingly improvised, and yet clearly and precisely through the barren architecture of the absurdly large house, followed by a calm, relentless camera.

You could say: What you see here is a 100-minute argument, as everyone knows who has been in a passionate relationship.

Only of course much nicer and more eloquent.

And because the dispute is also about the film that Malcolm made, this film that we are watching as viewers becomes embroiled in a meta-discussion pretty quickly.

In one of the best scenes, Malcolm reads the recently published review of his film and tears it to pieces, with more swear words than usual in an entire film.

The white critic sees his film about a black drug addict as a political manifesto about racism in the healthcare system, which Malcolm pisses off, to say the least.

He doesn't want to do political cinema.

And anyway: why can't black people just be people in films?

Why do they have to convey their entire history of oppression right away?

Spoken by a fictional black director, played by a black actor, who was put these words in his mouth by a white director: a pointed, funny and tragic escalation of questions of identity and art.

In the same scene, however, the critic also wonders why the main character in Malcolm's film has to be naked.

And while you watch the scene, you also look at Zendaya's butt, who at this point has already undressed several times in front of the camera and spends large parts of the film in white underwear.

How it is when you argue.

And the more you think about it, the more annoying it seems that this couple is so very predictable, so hollywood-esque, so - glamorous.

Because it doesn't add anything to the story, it just works like a cheap effect.

Because you'd rather watch movie stars and models arguing than yourself.

So while the critic in the film comes to the conclusion that Malcolm's debut is a masterpiece, unfortunately the same cannot be said about "Malcolm & Marie".

Icon: The mirror