Malcolm & Marie

[slumcat]

She looks good. He looks a bit stiff. But then again, I thought he was a bit stiff in Tenet too.

Though he was quite good in Blackkklansman.

[tcripe]

Originally Posted by slumcat

She looks good. He looks a bit stiff. But then again, I thought he was a bit stiff in Tenet too.

Though he was quite good in Blackkklansman.

I think that's just his acting style tbh.

[MazeRunner]

Is this a love story between an uncle and a niece?

[imsounoriginal]

[Mandalorian]

Doesn't look interesting to me, but if word of mouth is solid, I'll check it out. It looks like a perfume commercial.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Mandalorian

Doesn't look interesting to me, but if word of mouth is solid, I'll check it out. It looks like a perfume commercial.

Yeah, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.

[slumcat]

Or a short film. Doesn't look like there is enough here to sustain a feature-length 2-hour film.

[Gacivory]

I’m excited for this! Really like both of them!

[Foggy]

Ooof, I got some big old thoughts on this one.

Disregarding how poorly read the room was whilst making this, of having a film revolve around two of the most glamorous Hollywood stars be your mouthpiece around internally debating privilege, artistic integrity and your own ego in a snazzy penthouse after a knockout success of a premier for a heralded masterpiece film in the midst of a pandemic. The film just outright had me continually eye rolling throughout with it’s pseudo-intellectual monologuing around twitterspere buzzwords and a phoney playacting tragedy.

For twenty minutes I kinda thought it was gonna click, the atmosphere is genuinely uncomfortable, the way it tackles it’s toxic relationship in a real uncompromising way and all the elements seemed to be there, the score from Labyrinth offers simmering jazz interludes, the black and white photography has a real rustic snapshot feel and Zendaya and Washington look like they’re going to be firing on all cylinders. But you can only handle musing around Sam Levinson’s mental arithmetising around his internalise toxicity for a certain amount time before it grows less aggravating and just simply grating. I know a lot of the discussion around the film is theorising that the film only exists due to some poor reception Assassination Nation got, which I think Levinson isn’t so vain as to make an entire film based on that. But at the same time you can’t help but feel you’re getting a crass coursework essay on political discourse on modern criticism by the guy who made Assassination Nation, which, as much as I like that film, is a pretty trashy genre film aimed at Gen Z talking points and anxieties. You can’t just yank out you encyclopaedic film school degree and act like you’re taking film Twitter to task.

Zendaya comes out pretty unscathed, she manages to bring Levinson’s gorged script and bring it down to Earth even with such squirm inducing moments like delivering foreplay revolving around the LEGO movie. Washington on the other hand is giving the real thankless job of being Levinson’s most despicable masochistic battering ram, all the ego built up to get beaten down again and again, Washington attacks it with all the charisma he has, but watching him writh around ranting about the LA Times you just want to reach in a slap the screen.

Undoubtedly the desired effective is front row seats to a toxic relationship with vainglorious and conceited creator, but nothing about Malcolm and Marie feels genuine. Everything about it looks like a front, a nice little plaything to gorge creative vices and flex film literacy to an agonisingly patronising degree, it exercise every bit of ego it thinks it’s knocking down and is so smug in doing so.