Tuesday, 13 April 2021

VOD: Malcolm & Marie (dir: Sam Levinson, 2021)

"What's wrong with political films?"
"Political films are exhausting."

Almost feeling like a modern-day take on Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, this lockdown-made two-hander is inevitably theatrical in feel, but the intimacy and the  claustrophobic shifts in control and power work so well as a result.  A film director and his partner return home from his latest premiere, at which he neglected to thank her in his speech, and from that starting point the long night unravels their flaws and fraying relationship in uncompromising and uncomfortable detail, whilst making more general points on art, race and gender roles.  Director Levinson uses space and camera to great effect, John David Washington is extremely good and Zendaya is spectacular here.  Not exactly a date movie then, but this is a skilful piece of work.  
 

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