Malcolm & Marie

This film has a good script with consistent argument-building. It's easy to follow and good enough to keep you interested throughout. For the rest, acting is ok and the youth, looks and fame of the protagonists helps the viewer get more invested in the film. Cinematography is looking alright and the black n white was a good choice; character blocking looks also vibrant and there's plenty of energy in many scenes. Indeed, some might find that small parts are pretentious or unnecessary and other parts rather hilarious such as the one JDW eating with his mouth open while shouting...but these do not spoil the entire film. Overall, the director/writer did a good job creating this piece, giving moments of debate about love, politics, existence and all delivered with a great pace. Maybe this is the new Valentines Day fav movie..? 8/10 strong effort by Levinson.

Probably would have been better as a short film, because it really started to drag and feel a little repetitive in the second half.

It's a decent effort to do one of those one-location, limited cast kind of movies, but it is let down in the writing, with some dialogue that feels very overwritten at points, and a lot of scenes that feel like they hammer home the same point again and again. You could argue it's intentional, but I'm sure there would be ways to have that repetition as a theme without making the film feel like a bit of a chore to sit through after about the 50-minute mark.

That being said: even though the black and white cinematography doesn't seem to serve a concrete purpose, it does look fairly nice. And the film is saved by its two performances, who do surprisingly good work with a screenplay packed with lines (and whole scenes) that would be difficult to act convincingly.

Overall, it's far from terrible, and I did get a fair bit of enjoyment out of the first half and small parts here and there in the second, but it doesn't quite sustain itself well enough to justify the feature-length runtime, in my opinion.

To my surprise, this was a very compelling film that featured captivating and powerful performances mixed with brilliant writing. The shifting balance between the two characters keeps us on edge the entire time and we're never quite sure where it's taking us next. It's definitely a daring film to make and I'm sure it will split audiences by a large margin. It's not very easy to digest and I believe it would be better suited for the stage than the screen. However, it's a bold and confident move from the director to make this kind of film, especially in this day and age of cinema, even though it doesn't entirely work to the level of his ambition.

"It's not just about you forgetting to thank me, Malcolm. It's about how you see me. And how you view my contribution; not just to this relationship, but to your work. Specifically, in a movie you made about my life." Marie (Zendaya) If you've ever wondered why a film or play has been called a "two hander," here's a fine example: writer-director Sam Levinson's Malcolm & Marie. No other actors are needed, thank you. These two, John David Washington as Malcolm and Zendaya as Marie, eat up the lines without eating up the scenery without other actors. Living together, they wait at their lavish beach home for the reviews of his new film, whose premiere from which they have just returned. Fueled by passion, narcissism, and plain old intelligence, they argue about the authenticity of his directing and the elements of the film based on her life as a recovering addict (See quote above). Think of just Taylor and Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? without the two younger characters (in fact, the name of the unseen actress in his new film is "Taylor").

Through cycles of bitterness and love, the two characters in Malcolm define many of the important elements of art, most about the honesty of character and point of view or perspective of the artists. But underneath is the nagging is our suspicion that their solipsistic obsession with their craft keeps them from fully loving each other.

This romantic depiction of the conjunction of life and art is to be sipped like a fine Cognac, perhaps revisited to savor the brilliant script and watch two fine actors update the histrionics of Burton and Taylor into modern minimalism. Thanks, Netflix.

The acting is good and it's beautifully shot but it's soooo repetitive. A character puts on music, a character smokes. They argue. They make-up. They discuss filmmaking and "art". Characters talk while shoveling food down their mouths. Wash, rinse, repeat. It could have been a good short film. You get everything you really need in like 30 min. But alas its feature length film. So instead you're just hit with the same points again and again. It never adds anything new.