--- title: Zendaya Dazzles in the Otherwise Dull Malcolm & Marie description: 'Euphoria' creator Sam Levinson directs this movie about a filmmaker and his girlfriend fighting over the course of one evening canonical: https://time.com/5935675/malcolm-marie-zendaya/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-02-05T14:32:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T09:40:05.037Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Zendaya Dazzles in the Otherwise Dull Malcolm & Marie og:description: 'Euphoria' creator Sam Levinson directs this movie about a filmmaker and his girlfriend fighting over the course of one evening og:url: https://time.com/5935675/malcolm-marie-zendaya/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc35c425b615847f1/698a16f416d8848866c39153/Malcolm_Marie_00_22_43_17_R.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Malcolm_Marie_00_22_43_17_R og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Zendaya Dazzles in the Otherwise Dull Malcolm & Marie twitter:description: 'Euphoria' creator Sam Levinson directs this movie about a filmmaker and his girlfriend fighting over the course of one evening twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc35c425b615847f1/698a16f416d8848866c39153/Malcolm_Marie_00_22_43_17_R.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Zendaya Dazzles in the Otherwise Dull _Malcolm & Marie_ > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Feb 5, 2021 2:32 PM UTC  Zendaya as Marie, John David Washington as Malcolm Zendaya as Marie, John David Washington as MalcolmNETFLIX © 2021—© 2021 Netflix, Inc.  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Feb 5, 2021 2:32 PM UTC _Malcolm & Marie_ looks fantastic, a black-and-white retro-mod reverie as cushiony as an Eames lounge chair. It features terrific actors—[Zendaya](https://time.com/5579571/zendaya-met-gala-2019/) and [John David Washington](https://time.com/magazine/us/5362156/august-20th-2018-vol-192-no-7-u-s/)—who also happen to be movie-star gorgeous. And one scene, set to one of the most romantic pieces of music ever performed, the Duke Ellington and John Coltrane version of Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood,” radiates a sensual elegance that’s rare in movies today. How could a picture with so much going for it go so terribly wrong? Written and directed by Sam Levinson (creator of the teen-drama series [_Euphoria_](https://time.com/5606243/euphoria-zendaya-tv-show-review/)_)_, _Malcolm & Marie_, [streaming on Netflix](https://time.com/content-from/impact-partnership/s101263%5F0/A-Plan-to-Retire-Right/?prx%5Ft=j4sBAx5EBAG3wFA), takes place over a few nighttime hours as an arrogant but perhaps talented filmmaker, Malcolm (Washington), fields the half-unruly, half-justified anger of his girlfriend, Marie (Zendaya), as he waits for the reviews to roll in following the premiere of his latest chef-d’oeuvre. As soon as the two set foot in their spare, hip (rented) Malibu house, you know there’s trouble in paradise. Malcolm, still high on the evening’s festivities, is prattling on about his prodigious talent and complaining about critics who twist themselves in knots to see racial politics in every movie he makes. (He spends much of his fuming energy on a “white girl” critic at the Los Angeles _Times_.) Meanwhile, Marie drifts to the stove like an exquisite zombie—she’s still draped in the slinky liquid column of a dress she wore to the premiere, though she’s kicked off her heels—and starts to cook up some mac and cheese. Before she opens her mouth, you see the storm brewing behind her eyes. She’s about to let Malcolm have it—beginning with her charge that he failed to thank her in a speech he gave earlier in the evening—and most of it won’t be pretty. [**_Read more reviews by Stephanie Zacharek_**](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/) The first third of _Malcolm & Marie_ has some wit and verve, and style to spare. It also flirts with some potent questions of how we consume and interpret culture. (Malcolm wonders aloud why he’s always compared with other Black filmmakers, like [Spike Lee](https://time.com/5850280/spike-lee-interview/) and [Barry Jenkins](https://time.com/5472338/barry-jenkins-james-baldwin/), but never with the likes of one of his idols, William Wyler.) And that wondrously erotic love scene—the one in which Ellington and Coltrane sprinkle stardust all around—happens early on: Malcolm and Marie, having temporarily patched things up, entwine on the couch, enraptured with one another, turned on by the energy of their conversation more than anything. But that bliss is short lived. The heart of Marie’s complaint is that Malcolm has stolen her own story for his movie—she’s a recovering drug addict and has struggled with mental-health issues. Levinson has ripped quite a few rock ’em-sock ’em pages from the John Cassavetes tradition, as well as _Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?_ But if the couple’s fighting is amusing at times, it’s mostly lacerating and circular in a way that courts boredom rather than sympathy or any other deep, honest response. As Marie, Zendaya is saddled with the tedious role of the brainy knockout who’s also “difficult”—yet men can’t resist her! Somehow, though, Zendaya still dazzles, working wonders even with the movie’s exhausting, spiraling dialogue. As she surveys the prattling Malcolm through her half-lowered mermaid lids, her storm-cloud mood seems perfectly reasonable. 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