Malcolm & Marie is a polarizing experience, one that many have found themselves on either side of in terms of whether it’s pretentious or arty or too targeted or whatever, but no matter the message (or lack thereof) or outcome one may have when the credits roll, everyone agrees that the performances are, how shall I say? Authentic? (Movie inside joke). Good is what I’m saying. Dang good. I mean, it was a significant part our own review of the film, and honestly, having sat through it twice now, I get it.
Still, I’m not here to discuss or participate in the arguments circling the film and so, happily yield that side of the movie to other platforms where plenty is already being written and said about, well, everything and anything. It’s just great that a movie can still generate such enthusiastic conversations. What I do want to talk about instead, and hopefully give those on either side of the film’s narrative a chance to recognize, is the way the film works its script and how one moment in particular seems so crucial in its delivery that you don’t even realize how much so until it becomes the foundation of the very meaning of the story.
First though, a quick refresh of the plot. Malcolm (John David Washington) and his long-term girlfriend Marie (Zendaya) arrive ‘home’ (a place provided to them while in town) from the premiere of his debut directorial film effort. He is on a super contact high, feeling emboldened by the immediate response by the audience and a few interactions with critics, though begins to suggest that by tomorrow, these same critics may eviscerate or otherwise misinterpret his work. This is by all accounts, a natural fear for a filmmaker. Either way, he is like a caged tiger circling the room while he speaks as Marie, calm and clearly somewhat upset, prepares a pot of Mac & Cheese for him. We learn that she has reason for her state of mind, since, at the premiere, Malcolm did not thank her in his speech to the audience, not a word about her, which is concerning because she believes the film is a stylized account of her own life (and so much more). This leads to confrontation and then bitterness and then a volley of tirades between them as larger truths boil to the surface.
That’s all I’ll say about the story and settle in on a particularly harrowing moment midway through this where both Malcolm and Marie have said some really hurtful things to each other, even if they are very much what they believe in their hearts. In this moment, we find Marie soaking in a tub, all but her face and head submerged in the water. Malcolm has come in to the room, the two already heated over what began as a need to apologize and escalated into a war of words about the very fiber of their personalities and the meaning of their relationship. We get a sense that this may be familiar ground.
To this point, we know that Marie feels hurt by the slight at the ceremony and more so, that the film’s lead is based entirely on her, something that she believes is a kind of theft of sorts, that he stole her life for art. But that’s not all she says, accusing him of being a fraud in trying to claim he knows the life of the character he put on screen without crediting her. This is a wedge that sent her into the bathroom and he out in the fields nearby where he primes himself up to a flailing rage while she draws a bath. This is when he feels it’s time to tell his end of the story and so, strides into the room and says his peace.
It begins with the word “mediocre,” which is what she said about his work earlier, a hint already that it is the perception of his art rather than his performance as a human being that drives him. And from there, he releases a devastating deconstruction of her own assessment of the film and the lead character, of which remember, she believes is based entirely on her. He tells her that her fault is that she must connect everything to herself, saying that her feedback comes with an IOU, that she looks for ways to justify her existence in everything he does. He’s only getting started.
He snarkily charges that if she wants to play dirty, they here we go, and so, settles himself on the foot of the tub and announces that sure, she may want to hurt him but he can hurt her ten times worse, that she’s a featherweight, a Level 1 Boss, and that, rather ominously, he could snap her like a twig. He then breaks down all the things about the lead character of his film that Marie thinks are based on her and explains how they are not, than in fact, they are based on other lovers in his life, women who have had profound impact on his path to here, putting a lot of emphasis on a women named Kiki that he especially expresses got some sexual gratification from … in a heart-shaped bed.
Then he goes after her past addiction, the very thing that Marie thinks is the center of his inspiration for the film, directing it at a woman he once dated that was worse off, who eventually killed herself, and that, now that he thinks of it, is who he should have thanked at the ceremony. And then another who wanted to have kids with him. It’s painful to hear and when Marie delicately asks if he is done, he icely tells her, “Not even fucking close.” This is an angry man.
He then goes after Marie as a person, telling her she is disturbed, that she loves being hurt and traumatized, which earns from her a smile that is clearly defensive, pushing him finally out of the room, whereupon her smile fades and morphs into a decimating tremble. But he’s not done yet. He paces twice outside the door and then comes back, this time kneeling on the floor beside her and says he’s wrong. It’s not that it’s about justifying her existence but rather she is so scared and selfish that she has to break him down by implanting insecurity in his mind about his every decision. She is incapable of loving herself and can’t image that the reason he stays with her is because he loves her, and worse, that she can’t accept that there could be someone on this planet who could possibly love her back. And then he finally breaks himself, tears brimming while acknowledging his mistake in not thanking her and finally confesses that the one part of the lead character who is based on her is the end, the tragedy, the self-loathing and guilt and shame, unable to let the good inside. Then he leaves while she clutches her knees in what looks like a painful realization.
So, yeah, it’s a mesmerizing moment made so because of Washington’s gripping emotional speech, Zendaya’s silent, traumatizing disintegration, and director Sam Levinson‘s expressive use of the camera, which cuts in tight on their faces, extracting us as passive observers. The film is already in stark black & white, symbolically stripping away the superfluous in reminding us that there are only two sides to this encounter. He places Marie in a soapless tub of water, bare and vulnerable as the knives come out, Malcolm above her, in control, yet still like that caged tiger, poked and angry, using its fangs to bite back, not careful of the wounds it may open along the way.
I love how Levison’s script has no room for the expected, where we are sure violence is coming at any moment, that physicality is the only response two people could possibly have in such a conflict, as seen in countless movies before. Not so here. Levison is careful to show that the only time these lovers touch is when if fact they want to connect again, the stirrings of raw, unbridled connective sex between arising a few times before each is interrupted by the words and actions that have divided them. When they fight, it is with great ferocity, sometimes subtle – as with a blisteringly quiet moment where all we hear is a well-selected song on Marie’s playlist that ironically finds them a passage of peace – but it is never physical. That doesn’t lessen the pain.
But the best thing about this moment by the tub is that it is not really over when you think it’s done, that it does in fact have everything to do with something that comes later, when a circle we didn’t even know was constructing comes around again and Marie is given a chance to tell her side. And what she says is one of the most powerful, daunting, gut-wrenching pleas for presence in the world that I have ever heard in film. It’s why everything that happened before exists and lands with such a blow you can’t help but wonder about the ones you love and have ever loved before.
Malcolm & Marie certainly has its critics, and while I, as a person who professionally reviews films, see the point Levision is making (though his argument may well be I don’t), I was greatly taken by the effort and delivery of this movie. It strives to be a voice against criticism, thereby sort of dismissing those that find fault with it, but I really don’t care about any of that, and I have long tried to “judge” a film experience on how a movie makes me feel. I felt something while sitting through Malcolm & Marie, a wild mix of emotions that I believe the characters are meant to reflect. So I urge you to watch and do it not so much to frame some kind of argumentative position on the themes but rather inside at the art it portrays. Pay attention to this moment by the tub and see if it does for you what it means for me.