Malcolm & Marie - The Mouthpiece Movie

Early on in Malcolm & Marie, Marie (Zendaya) predicts that "nothing productive will be said tonight." It's a prescient proclamation, although likely not for the reasons Marie nor writer-director Sam Levinson believe it to be.

Malcolm & Marie is noteworthy for a number of reasons. It is one of a few films to have been entirely written, shot, and released during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the first of its kind to arrive on Netflix. It also features a pair of powerful performances from Zendaya and co-star John David Washington, who - in case it wasn't obvious - plays Malcolm. Malcolm and Marie are the only two characters to appear in the film that bears their names, alternating between bouts of conflict and, allegedly, romance.

While Malcolm & Marie is ostensibly a relationship drama, there isn't much of a central relationship to speak of. Sure, there are two characters who are in a relationship, but Levinson's script offers nothing that indicates a broader life for these two outside of a few empty gestures towards Marie's past, which are only meant to service talking points that Levinson has already belabored in his previous works. Malcolm and Marie are nothing but vile towards one another, and yet they both seem committed to making their relationship work. Levinson is not interested in why that might be. In fact, he's not interested in their relationship at all, only in how that relationship can give way to his convoluted arguments and ideas.

To their credit, Zendaya and Washington do have an undeniable chemistry. They are, after all, two very talented actors. But praising even this aspect of Malcolm & Marie feels misguided. For all the electricity that the film's two stars inject into Levinson' script, one can't help but feel like they are overcompensating for what is nothing but an incoherent mess. Washington in particular seems aware of this fact, accentuating and embellishing his long, meandering monologues at every opportunity. He flails his arms and kicks his feet and twists his mouth into all sorts of shapes, but none of it elevates Levinson's meaningless drivel.

Levinson, who is most well known for creating the HBO series Euphoria, has always demonstrated a willingness to tackle topics seemingly outside of his wheelhouse. It's an admirable approach in a way, embracing the collaborative nature of filmmaking and not allowing himself to be restrained by the oversimplification of contemporary identity politics. Unfortunately, Levinson just isn't a very good writer. Even his best works - I very much enjoyed 2018's Assassination Nation - reek of a certain desperation. After all, Levinson is the son of Barry, who first broke out with 1982's Diner and has helmed such classics as Wag the Dog (1997) and Good Morning, Vietnam (1987).

The younger Levinson is not talentless. His works are consistently stylish, but their ideas are largely confused, as Levinson's scripts rarely operate in terms of character or narrative. The 35-year-old wants so badly to prove himself, to be his own director, to say something god dammit!

Unfortunately, Levinson's desperate attempts at significance have reached their apex (or is it nadir?) with Malcolm & Marie. The solid performances and sumptuous, albeit unnecessary, black-and-white photography are only distractions. The plot, the characters, the music? Distractions too. The truth is that nothing in Malcolm & Marie even matters, and Washington's Malcolm even admits this late in the film during one of his many tirades against film criticism. He ridicules critics' tendencies to analyze directorial decisions, suggesting that every decision is simply a personal choice on the part of the director, nothing more. It's a rather bewildering assertion, coming just moments after Malcolm scoffs at a critic failing to recognize what kind of lens he used in a certain shot.

Of course, these are the kinds of moments Levinson delivers throughout Malcolm & Marie. He's not really interested in saying anything coherent, sharp, or insightful. He just wants to complain, and maybe even provoke. In this sense, Malcolm & Marie is the ultimate vanity project, a term I thought was reserved for silly things like Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul collaborating on their own brand of mezcal, not a nepotist's son convincing Netflix to cut him a check for $2.5 million just so he can misrepresent issues of cinema, race, and basic human behavior.

Indeed, Malcolm & Marie is a vanity project, perhaps brimming with more vanity than any other of its kind. The film is largely an attempt to defend itself and Levinson's previously panned works from any criticism whatsoever. Again, Levinson may imagine his perspective on film critics to be a provocative one, but it is ultimately childish and shallow.

Filmmakers, actors, film critics, screenwriters, fucking gaffers and grips. They are all inhabitants of the same entertainment ecosystem. This is not a new or controversial revelation in 2021. Levinson has to know that. Perhaps he imagines critics to be the predators of the ecosystem, and he is simply living his life in fear of every bad review. Perhaps that is why he made Malcolm & Marie, fortifying his defenses in preparation for his impending doom. Of course, by confronting the critics Levinson so clearly reviles, he only opens himself up to further criticism. One could interpret Malcolm & Marie as an honest and vulnerable admission from Levinson that he is fixated upon his oeuvre's critical reception, and Marie's combination of disinterest in and amusement with Malcolm's obsession could represent Levinson noting the unhealthy nature of his fixation. Unfortunately, Levinson — and Washington, for that matter — renders Malcolm too loud, too obnoxious to be anything but an oppressive force upon the audience. Marie is similarly insufferable, pacing the film with a series of repetitive arguments.

Indeed, one of Malcolm & Marie's biggest weaknesses is its pacing. The film features four or five disputes between its central couple, and separates them with empty sequences of smoking, dancing, or sex. By the final interlude, I was accurately predicting the manner in which Marie would interrupt their make-out session, and what she would say to initiate another fight. The repetitiveness is not a symptom of a poor plot, only the absence of one altogether.

Malcolm & Marie is not the first film to reduce its characters to mouthpieces for its director's ideas, sacrificing narrative and character in the process. It is, however, the first to do so in a matter of months. Particularly because of its Netflix release, Levinson's film seems more interested in a sort of online permanence than in any actual cinematic success. Like Euphoria, the film includes plenty of Zendaya-centric close-ups that will undoubtedly live on via TikToks and Twitter stan accounts. In one scene, she removes her fake eyelashes. In another, she lowers her leggings as she changes into her pajamas. From this point forward, she spends the rest of the film in underwear, braless too. I will refrain from accusing Levinson of adopting a male gaze in Malcolm & Marie, mostly because he considers this very possibility. Malcolm explains that the male gaze cannot possibly exist because, you know, what if the director is gay? Or transitioning from male to female unbeknownst to viewers and critics alike? I know that last one sounds made up, or like a bad headline from The Babylon Bee, but it is a genuine line of dialogue from Netflix OriginalTM Malcolm & Marie.

Movies like Malcolm & Marie terrify me. They signal a new age for cinema, in which the actual quality of a film is irrelevant, the actual viewing experience secondary to a film's ability to live on digitally.

Levinson obviously has a pathetic fascination with film criticism; he even spends half of Malcolm & Marie namedropping classic directors and films, picking apart their successes and flaws. Newsflash, Sam: that's film criticism! But even as the writer-director remains ignorant to this fact, he does technically pepper his film with enough references and asides to convince viewers (and himself) that Malcolm & Marie is an important text, rather than just self-important. Of course, there is no actual substance to Levinson repeatedly namechecking Spike Lee's 1989 film Do The Right Thing, but it sure sounds good! Levinson jampacks Malcolm & Marie with enough pretty pictures, memeable moments, and extratextual references to ensure an online existence.

But for how long?

Sadly, it doesn't really matter. With cinema shifting further and further into the digital realm, a film's shelf life needn't exceed two or three weeks. Cinema simply needs to inspire a few good Tweets, centered around a snazzy image or a snappy line of dialogue. It doesn't need to entertain, inform, or even be coherent. It doesn't need to have aspirations, or to reckon with any broader cultural implications. Instead, it just needs to speak the language of the Internet and include a few Tweet-worthy screengrabs.

Having watched Malcolm & Marie, Euphoria, and Assassination Nation, I am endlessly curious as to what a conversation with Levinson would be like. Does he really talk the way that he writes? In his mid-thirties? In one of Malcolm's many messy monologues, the director chastises audiences' obsession with authenticity, essentially claiming that it is the objective of simpletons. And yet, authenticity is precisely what Levinson seems to be going for when he asks his actors to describe a song as "fire" or to refer to a female writer as a "Karen." To be clear, I am not criticizing this intention. I believe in authenticity, although Levinson's exact brand of authenticity is both cringeworthy and corny. By all means, I also believe in artificiality! I would never dare to set up a debate as directionless as the one Levinson seems to be having with himself here, hilariously ensnaring himself in his own contradictions as a result.

Levinson's cringeworthy insistence upon writing like a Gen-Zer is not the only example of him stepping on his own mousetraps. I haven't even begun to unpack the writer-director's sloppy reflections on race. As I briefly alluded to earlier, I do agree with Levinson's principal contention that artists can create art on any topic, regardless of their own identity. Certainly, in doing so, artists also become responsible for the ways in which their own perspective impacts or limits their messaging. Not every attempt in this vein is a good one, but it can be done appropriately. Trey Edward Shults, for example, crafted a balanced and compelling portrait of a middle-class Black family in Waves. I'm not all that interested in dissecting Levinson's potpourri of ideas on the topic, only in highlighting the ideology that underscores Malcolm & Marie's perspective on race and every other topic: Levinson's own insecurities. Go ahead, make a movie about black people. Just don't spend the whole runtime trying to justify it!

The fact that anyone involved with this project greenlit it is mind-boggling to me, but maybe it shouldn't be. As our cultural output continues to multiply, there is less and less need for ambition. Why aim for a spot on AFI's Top 100 Films of All Time when you can just show up in a few Instagram posts from time to time? Of course, there is an entirely separate set of politics surrounding film canonization, and great films will always emerge over time, but it almost certainly won't be a Netflix or Hulu Original. I'm not even sure these streaming services will ever nab a Roma or a The Irishman again. Netflix has been rightfully lauded for the extensive creative control they afford auteurs like Cuarón and Scorsese, but maybe that's not such a good thing when it comes to wannabes like Levinson, who Netflix hilariously billed as a "visionary director" in its first trailer for Malcolm & Marie.

There will always remain a worthwhile debate around cinema's exact nature, about what it should and should not do. And, believe it or not, I commend Levinson for at least participating in that debate, even if he doesn't quite contribute to it. I also acknowledge that, by writing about the film, I am contributing to the digital presence that the film so badly desires. I'm sure Levinson delights in the paradox that he has set up for the rest of us, particularly as it somewhat mirrors the argument he is having with himself in Malcolm & Marie. But Barry's son layers his misguided musings over a loveless relationship. No matter who you believe won any given argument in the film, or where you think Levinson himself is expecting us to land, the basis for these disagreements is a thinly written, poorly developed relationship. Malcolm and Marie may be superficial byproducts of Levinson's ego, but they are also just two incompatible idiots, residing in a glass house tucked away in the ritzy Carmel-by-the-Sea. Indeed, I half-expected the Kims from Parasite to show up and further upend our unhappy couple's miserable lives. Is the relationship, then, between audience and director any different? Even the most generous readings of Levinson's incoherent babbling are rooted in our painful, loveless relationship with him.

And so, on behalf of Malcolm & Marie viewers everywhere, I dedicate this piece to you, Sam Levinson.

Here's some of that attention you are looking for.