Now, when I first came across this movie I was intrigued to see what this was all about. It was, in my opinion, prime time for streaming services where everybody was just watching any and everything. It premiered in 2020, during quarantine on Netflix, and was the talk of the month. Of course, this is because I grew up watching Zendaya, who also co-produced the film, all the way from that fake commercial Disney put out about her or should I say “Jasmine’ about that time she became a big sister.
Then I watched her in Shake it Up, Zapped, K.C. Undercover, and now Euphoria. It’s exciting to see her in other more mature roles and venture off into her acting career. Then we have Isiah Washington who is THEE Denzel Washington’s son so it was really a match-up for the culture. For some context, it was written, co-produced, and directed by Sam Levinson. I might also add Euphoria in all of those same manners which I was not aware of until mid-movie because of the intense similarities. However, the film took place at their home right after Malcolm's film premiere. The black-and-white film takes place over a prolonged night of arguments, smoking, and love.
Now, let's get down to the nitty-gritty as in the plot. The overall script could have and should have been better. I think that it accurately depicted the toxic relationship between Malcolm and Marie through her addiction and his narcissism. The thing is often white people attempt to write these stories about black people it always feels like something is missing. In this case, Malcolm mentions a critique that was made and basically went on a tangent about how his movies’ focus should not be on the race.
This could be a true testament to who he is as a self-loathing black man however the plot of the story never really went in that. As a person of color, everything we do will be looked at from a certain narrative because that is just how our society is. But how could a white man write from a perspective of a black man? There will always be a barrier when it comes to these certain topics.
While discussing this topic with my peers, who are African- American, I discovered many of them had some of the same ideas when bringing up this topic.
“I never even bothered to watch the film because of how many people said how bad it was,” said Journee Scott, a sophomore at Xavier University of Louisiana. “A lot of people were also saying that the movie really didn’t get anywhere either.”
With all being said the film really had a great amount of potential but lacked in several aspects.
As far as the cast goes both Zendaya and Isiah Washington did phenomenal however I was expecting to see more depth of Marie because it felt like the same character that she plays in Euphoria, Rue.
Honorary Scene: https://youtu.be/MDjfTv1gi2M
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