Malcolm & Marie (2021): A review
When two individuals stay together for a long while, their first casualty is the fear of the unknown. Nothing surprises you anymore about the other person. You’ve seen them laugh, weep, spill food on their shirt, bleed profusely, fall asleep with their mouth open, talk with their mind closed, get their fingers dirty, argue like an idiot, be remarkably charitable to strangers, cook the worst omelette ever, regret something from 1999, immerse themselves in their favourite movies/shows, belch and fart out loud, sing like a duck, snore maybe, and so on.
That’s what a relationship is all about.
When a couple is busy building their lives around each other, they are basically creating rooms for themselves without stepping on toes. And if at all they step, the first thing they might do is remove their foot away and then say sorry—not the other way around. The dynamics of familiarity rests on unquestionable care and concerns, yes, but also on taking each other’s presence for granted. No, it’s not the same as taking each other for granted.
You’ll seldom come across as two people in love who fit like a glove. Generally, one has to temper down a bit so that the other can assert and vice versa. It’s a continuous role-play of convenience because you have somehow told yourself that this is it. No point starting afresh now. The Law Of Diminishing Marginal Utility goes quiet in such economic situations.
Strange.
While watching Malcolm & Marie (2021), I was constantly thinking about all these factors (and much more) because on the screen, we have two level-minded individuals who are great at punching each other with words. Not to take anything away from that bloody sport but this movie is basically a boxing match with pee breaks.
The reason I decided to write a short review is the same as why people assume companionship is fulfilling: just have to. It’s a river you ought to cross to learn what lies on the other side. By standing on the bank, you are only going to admire the sun glistening on the surface.
As you dive deeper into the relationship shared by the protagonists, you realize the many human weaknesses that make our species what it should be proud of: vulnerable.
There were several moments in this conversational bout when I had to pause to understand why she said what she said or why he responded the way he did. As is the case with dialogue-heavy movies—height of irony, isn’t it?—we tend to lose out on words. After your second watch, you are at a better place to judge the overall production.
Speaking of which, I simply loved the cinematography: makes you wonder why black-and-white shall always be timeless. So many gorgeous shots of two individuals struggling with who they really are and coming to terms with their own stories, if not their respective hypocrisies.
Although I don’t watch movies at the rate I used to, I hope we continue to witness the fruition of such nicely executed scripts. One of the main pillars of cinema is the uncomfortable silence that takes place between sound. Imagine the amount of tension on the screen when those pauses are created by two people. People who are apparently a couple and are slowly figuring out the grammar of a relationship.