Art is always a mirror of the attitudes of the artist and society around it. The personal drama, and the geopolitical machinations all fuel the creative process. In 2021, off of the success of Assassination Nation, and wanting to pivot to something newer, Sam Levison took a different approach, a more ambitiously artistic approach, in Malcolm & Marie.

We follow a supposedly successful, scratch that, crowning night in the lives of Malcolm and Marie, a successful couple in Hollywood. Marie should be celebrating Malcolm’s premier, but the simple omission of her name during the opening night speech casts a shadow over the evening. As the argument ensues, the night descends as old wounds are brought up, the lingering issues over who can tell what stories, as well as the wider societal issues that manage to plague them. Will the fallout of the night spell curtains for their relationship?

The film is creatively audacious from the get-go, shot entirely in black and white, which might play into the themes of race, a homage to the Hollywood of yesteryear, or an attempt to look classy. Art is open to many interpretations, and choices can have significance behind them. Levison is no stranger to tackling tougher themes, as his previous projects have more than shown. Race and drug issues do present themselves, as they did in other projects, like Another Happy Day and Euphoria. (I still haven’t watched the show, so this is conjecture based on cultural osmosis, but Zendaya portraying a former addict feels familiar with what I’ve heard of the show). To help give these issues some greater weight, Levison has dialled back the cast to just two people, the eponymous Malcolm & Marie.

For essentially a two-act play, John David Washington and Zendaya do fine jobs playing the young couple. John David Washington, who you might renumber from the time-bending action spectacle Tenet a year earlier. Here, Malcolm has issues dealing with the interpretations of his film and the choices he made. Meanwhile, Euphoria star Zendaya takes on the role of Marie, whose character is an inspiration for Malcolm in more ways than one. The whole thing feels like it is a mixture of provocative and subdued, a peculiar mix of the ideas picked up from Another Happy Day and Assassination Nation. Still, the results effectively present some of the bolder ideas that Levison has commented on.

One man’s art may be another man’s pretension, and Malcolm & Marie take the former in some bold new places for Levison. Dropping the glossy unflinching action, for a more intimate setting, dropping the star-studded cast for two shining diamonds and dropping conventional action for an artistic change. The film tackles the impact of our choices and the reactions to said choices, If any of that sounds interesting, It might be worth it to choose to drop in on Malcolm & Marie.

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