Movie Review 'Malcolm & Marie'

I have nothing but love and respect for my critical brethren. It takes a great deal of fortitude to endure the slings and arrows of being a professional film critic. Filmmakers often don’t care for our profession and consider us outsiders, ignorant of their effort and art form. Many movie fans hate us and openly tell us that they seek out movies we don’t like on the assumption that they will like it because we don’t.

These are incredibly petty problems but the point is, it takes a thick skin to be a film critic and take in the enmity that often comes with our privileged profession. Not all of us have the ability to ignore the negativity hurled our way and others feel it necessary to defend our profession from such attacks. I think that this may explain some of the reactions to the new Netflix movie, Malcolm & Marie starring John David Washington and Zendaya.

Malcolm & Marie tells the story of one night and one lengthy fight between a couple on the night of a movie premiere. Malcolm is returning home jovial and triumphant after his new movie was met with raves at the Hollywood premiere. Malcolm’s girlfriend, Marie, is less excited and her irritation is written on her face. While Malcolm dances and plays around to a James Brown tune, Marie sullenly prepares a late dinner and barely conceals her contempt.

Pinpointing what has caused Marie’s irritation is not simple. Throughout the length of a 4 plus hour argument, Marie will reveal a number of micro aggressions that she feels Malcolm has committed against her. The first reason however, is Malcolm’s speech prior to the showing of the movie. Malcolm thanked everyone for their help and support in making the movie, everyone except for Marie.

This is a personal and significant snub because Malcolm’s movie is, at least in part, based on Marie’s life and their relationship. Marie was a drug addict who nearly lost her life to addiction while Malcolm worked to help get her clean. Now, he’s made a movie with that storyline and he’s forgotten to thank her. This naturally puts Malcolm on the defensive and being equally as volatile as Marie, Malcolm holds little back in trying to win the argument.

The point of Malcolm & Marie however, is not about winning or losing or getting the upper hand. At its heart, Malcolm & Marie is about a couple pushing each other to their limits, breaking the bounds of politeness and civility. We are trained not to say many of the things we are thinking, those mean, nasty thoughts and recriminations that exist in everyone’s mind. Sometimes, the anger and frustration boils over and the words we don’t say have to come out and Malcolm & Marie puts us in that moment.

Comedian Christopher Titus had a lengthy bit in his comedy special, Norman Rockwell is Bleeding, that Malcolm & Marie reminded me of. In Titus’ monologue he talks about a fight between him and his future wife that goes on for days and the ways in which they knew how to hurt each other. When the fight finally ended they realized that they loved each other enough to survive this and they were married for over a decade after that fight occurred.

Malcolm & Marie packs several days of hurtful, nasty verbal jabs into one single night and while we don’t know if they stayed together afterwards, you can sense that they’d discovered the limits of what they could say or do to each other and perhaps that catharsis, this fight, was exactly what they needed. As Christopher Titus says when his argument started and they started stabbing each other with words, “F*** it, we’re here now.” That's where Malcolm and Marie are, they reached the fight of no return and it's on now.

The weight of keeping up appearances, little lies to preserve civility, and politeness intended to keep the peace, eventually becomes too much for any couple to bear. If you haven’t had an all night, drop dead, come to Jesus argument with your significant other, wait a little while, it’s almost inevitable. How you come out of it is how you realize just how much you love someone.

That’s the truth that Malcolm & Marie achieves and leaves you to determine if the cards were reshuffled or simply thrown away. We as an audience often sit in judgment and take sides and when the worst happens, we decide how we think it should play out. Reality is more complicated than that, and our judgment rightly doesn’t matter regardless of the righteousness of who we’ve sided with.

Near the end of Malcolm and Marie, John David Washington delivers a mad monologue, an angry, bitter diatribe that is inspired by, of all things, a positive review of his movie in the Los Angeles Times. Malcolm is offended by the way the white female critic praised the movie and parsed the meaning of it. He then proceeds to rundown this unnamed, fictional critic for several minutes while denigrating much of the profession of film criticism.

He makes some good points and he also offers some awful and ill informed hot takes. Many in my profession, whether they admit it or not, have taken this scene to heart. Many, again, whether they admit it or not, have reviewed the movie negatively based on this scene. Myself, while I am not immune to petty judgment, I don’t see it as an actual commentary on critics either by director Sam Levinson or actor John David Washington.

Rather, for me, the scene is a meta-commentary on the movie we are watching within the movie we are watching. It’s an artist throwing down with people he genuinely cares about and, much like his argument with Marie, he’s going for the jugular, he’s trying to hurt people for hurting him in the past. It’s a recrimination. Secretly, he does respect critics, he does respect the art form, he’s pushing at the boundaries of our profession, challenging us to be better while also angrily ranting about critical micro aggressions that he’s taken personally.

I find the scene to be kind of brilliant in that way. An artist admitting that he secretly loves critics while angrily denouncing them. Film is like his girlfriend, someone he loves with all his heart but also sees fault in and wishes to have it out about what bothers him. It’s an expression of love in a not particularly constructive way. But it is a cathartic admission, a confession that while he’s angry, while he hates aspects of Hollywood, critics, media, he also cares enough to be angry about those things and wishes to express that anger while hoping we can still work things out in the end.

Whether Malcolm & Marie work out in the end, I will leave you to decide. As a movie however, about one of those incredibly important aspects of a relationship, fighting and making up or moving on, I found Malcolm and Marie incredibly thought provoking and bold. Much like Christopher Titus mines a painful argument from life for big cathartic laughs, Malcolm & Marie mines this painful argument for catharsis and poignant moments of genuine drama and weight.

Malcolm & Marie debuted on Netflix on February 5th, 2021.