Malcolm and Marie analysis: Zendaya and Washington's efficiency impressive

The initial reviews of Zendaya and John David Washington starrer Malcolm and Marie has received mostly positive critical reception with a 75 per cent rating at review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.

The Sam Levinson directorial gets the two lead actors playing a couple. Washington's Malcolm can be a filmmaker who offers returned with his wife Marie from his movie's premiere and the celebratory mood of the night turns serious because they begin to share revelations about themselves and things come on.

Empire Magazine's Amon Warmann said about the film, "Zendaya and John David Washington deliver career-best performances in this mesmerising two-hander that ruminates on love, life and art."

Collider's Matt Goldberg wrote in his review, "No disrespect to article writer/director Sam Levinson, but Malcolm & Marie is a good movie that lives or dies by its actors. John David Washington and Zendaya will be the only two persons in the motion picture, and the whole conflict is about the relationship between both of these characters. For every one of the prolonged monologues and stark black-and-light cinematography, Malcolm & Marie belongs to Washington and Zendaya."

The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney wrote, "Washington holds his own throughout but it's MVP Zendaya who carries the movie, revealing as substantially in Marie's loaded silences as she does in her words."

Peter Debruge wrote, "Uncomfortable as it can be to view a couple battle, there's something incredibly moving in regards to a filmmaker compelled to dedicate a whole movie to acknowledging he couldn't do that by itself. And all it got was two actors, a tiny crew and a worldwide pandemic to get that sentiment out in to the open."