Review: Malcolm and Marie

Words and review by Asher Luberto

Malcolm and Marie should win some kind of award for Best Looking Bad Movie. Headlining two magnetic stars, and shot beautifully by talented cinematographer Marcell Rev, all black and white and artfully framed, it looks like an important and meaningful film. It’s not.

It feels as though writer-director Sam Levinson went home from a premier one night, argued with his wife and thought, you know what, I should make this into a movie. In Malcolm and Marie, a film director and his wife arrive at their Malibu rental house after a premier, and proceed to fight, argue, shout, kiss, make-up, then fight all over again. Is this some kind of therapy for Levinson, who is putting his life on screen? Not really, nope. It’s a two-hour blab-a-lanch that says nothing about anything while going nowhere.

To even explain the premise seems like a waste of time, but, seriously, you gotta hear this. Jon David Washington plays Malcolm, “poet, philosopher, visionary,” or as we would say, a director, who rants about movie reviews and babbles about how no one understands him. That’s what directing is all about, baby.

The reviews for his latest film aren’t out yet, so he stays up with his wife, Marie (Zendeya), until they are posted online. She looks glam in a shiny dress, but sullen as she slams around the kitchen and makes pouty faces. He is hyper, excited to be the hottest new director in town, and doesn’t even notice that she is annoyed. She might as well not be in the room while he dances to “In a Sentimental Mood,” all smiles and laughter, but trouble lingers in the air like cigarette smoke. Malcolm finally notices and asks Marie what’s bothering her, and off they go.

The rest of the movie is them arguing about the evening, the contents of Malcom’s film, and their histories both shared and personal, alternately storming and pouting around the house. A far more interesting film would allow for some grace notes, but alas, the plot crawls along as we watch two rich people whine about their problems.

There’s never any rhyme or reason to these arguments; they come out of the blue, as if Levinson was making them up as he went along. But the movie also feels scripted, like so many Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf-style showdowns, and the stinted dialogue suffocates the aesthetic virtue. If the film felt like a real conversation between two people, that would be poignant. Instead we have a tapestry of deeply personal and self-conscious monologues that are supposed to sound smart but actually sound like a director venting for two hours about absolutely nothing.

Perhaps the idea wasn’t this half-baked from the get-go, or maybe the film was rushed in production and lost all meaning. Whatever the case, for all its artfully composed images, Malcom and Marie is more babbling nonsense than anything else.

About the reviewer:

Asher Luberto lives in California, writes about movies, movies, movies, and more movies. Bylines in LA Weekly, The Playlist, The Progressive, NBC, FOX, Willamette Week and We Got This Covered.

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About the Author

Dr. Jerry Doby Editor-in-Chief of The Hype Magazine, Media and SEO Consultant, Journalist, Ph.D. and retired combat vet. 2023 recipient of The President's Lifetime Achievement Award. Partner at THM Media Group. Member of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, the United States Press Agency and ForbesBLK.