Film shot during pandemic delivers slow-burn intensity

Planned during the peak of the pandemic and shot in 22 days, ‘Malcolm & Marie’ is a unique offering.

Centered around the relationship between filmmaker Malcolm Elliott (John David Washington) and his girlfriend Marie Jones (Zendaya), the film sets off after the premier of Malcolm’s film.

The air is filled with tension when Marie promises Malcolm that nothing productive will be said tonight. Shot entirely in black and white, the visuals are stunning. The lack of colour and the frame-within-frame concept draws focus to the two characters and their dynamics.

There is a predictability to the movie but you can’t look away. At first, it is the curiosity of who these people are; slowly it becomes voyeuristic, you want to see these two people tear each other down completely.

The camera guides you, from Malcolm’s ecstatic dance to Marie’s quiet anger all framed by windows of a house that is at the centre of their argument. The drama is accentuated by brilliant acting by the leads. Zendaya holds her own in her leading-lady debut against Golden Globe-nominated Washington.

The music spans genres. It takes the role of a third character. Each song pushes the story forward. The scene with Dionne Warwick’s ‘Get Rid of Him’, is my favourite. After Malcolm ‘snaps her like a twig’, Marie sits in silence next to him and plays this song — ‘I know he’s out to break my heart...He’ll rip my dreams apart...But I love that fella so…I’ll never let him go’.

Many film lovers feel the screenplay was best suited for a short film but to me the long drawn out arguments emphasise the exhaustion of it all.

This is not an explosion, it is a slow burn and that is what makes the movie special.