8. ‘Malcolm and Marie’ (2021)
Who Zendaya plays: Marie, a recovering drug addict and the girlfriend of writer-director Malcolm Elliot (John David Washington). Sam Levinson’s film focuses on one tense night in their relationship, after the premiere of his new film, as Marie confronts Malcolm over his selfishness and strip-mining of her own trauma for the plot of the movie.
Is she good? It’s clear why ‘Malcolm and Marie’ was an appealing project for Zendaya. After only portraying teenagers very far into her career, here’s a ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ riff that allows her to play a truly adult woman and explore the bruised, complicated edges of a longterm relationship. But ‘Malcolm and Marie’ is an empty disaster, and Zendaya is frankly a big part of the reason why. Whether it’s an issue with Levinson’s direction or her own limitations at that stage of her career, Zendaya feels strained and labored in the role, desperately trying to conjure a sense of lived history and simmering resentment that dissipates quickly like a mist. If she doesn’t embarrass herself as much as Washington (who gives a genuinely terrible performance), Zendaya’s work exposes many of her weak spots as an actor that she otherwise has done well to conceal.