Zendaya and John David
Washington ham it up entertainingly in a two-hander about a conceited director and his partner
This two-hander from writer-director Sam Levinson starring John David Washington and Zendaya can be shouty, hammy and shrill, with handbrake-turn theatrical mood shifts. At its worst, it feels like an insufferable vanity project. But it’s pugnaciously well-acted, flavoured with vinegary insights and rage-filled denunciations, and a hilarious set piece of scorn about how awful film critics are.Malcolm (Washington) is a conceited young movie director and Marie (Zendaya) his smart, gorgeous girlfriend, returning to the fancy house rented for them by the production company after the gloriously successful premiere of his first feature. Malcolm pours himself one out in their luxury kitchen, puts James Brown on the sound system and is keen to indulge a new, private afterparty mood of angry triumph and self-congratulation that he couldn’t really show the other guests earlier. But Marie is simmering with discontent due to his failure to thank her in his gushing post-screening speech. She is deeply hurt by his failure to acknowledge that his movie is surely inspired by her own desperately unhappy life. Their subsequent ferocious row takes in sex, relationships, celebrity, the movies, the artist’s burden and what they both face as people of colour.