Malcolm a film director and his girlfriend Marie return home following the premiere of his latest movie and he eagerly awaits the first critic responses and reviews.
⭐️⭐️
When embarking on a film that only has two actors in it you must really create something truly unique and interesting. This is to keep the audience engaged and not an easy task to complete in a good way. The running time for the film is one hour and 46 minutes, which is not really too long but it has to keep you fully engaged.
I'm pretty sure that the opening ten minutes were just Malcolm ranting on and I don't remember Marie actually speaking. Straight away we are made aware of how self involved Malcolm is not really putting him in a very good light at all, this is something that then continues to get worse as the conversation into arguments go on and on and quite frankly on.
It takes a while before Marie even says anything and even now after watching the film last night I don't have anything memorable on what that actually was. Making him Mac and cheese then complaining about him eating it, as he continues to complain about things. When the first review comes in for his film, he is immediately irate about what has been said about his film. Albeit the review actually seems to end very positive?
When I was watching the film I was never fully engrossed but some moments did feel like you shouldn't be watching the intimate argument between this couple, but then at other times you are left wonder what on earth Marie is still doing in that relationship? He was emotionally abusive towards her and very cruel, without any real reason for that. It was actually quite horrible to watch that. Who even cared about his past relationships? I struggled to accept that he even cared about Marie let alone supposed to love her.
The buzz surrounding the film over the past few weeks had probably influenced my desire to watch this one. I think I was left disappointed in terms of I expect this type of drama with romance thrown in to be my favourite genre and film type, then less characters usually means more dialogue. However, when the dialogue is instantly forgettable it doesn't really make any real difference. I couldn't help but draw comparisons to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and this isn't even fit to be mentioned anywhere near it. I guess that is the difference with the stage origins then transfer to screen.
I personally did not find the performances that great, some good moments from both John David Washington and Zendaya but nothing spectacular or amazing. I feel that the true buzz is because they are the only two on screen and nothing else to then be compared to, a lot of ranting and raving from Washinton and when Zendaya gets her moment none of it memorable.
This one didn't impact me at all, even though I truly expected it to hit all of the hype surrounding it. It did not hit any of the hype for me and I am left scratching my head around the five star reviews. None of the dialogue was memorable at all, the only good moment was the reaction to film reviews!
Malcolm & Marie will always have the fact that it was one of the first films in the United States to be written, directed and completed during the Covid-19 pandemic. That alone had given it quite a pedestal in the build up to being released worldwide on Netflix.