A New Zendaya Movie Just Hit Netflix

Zendaya has a new movie on Netflix and fans are already calling it a masterpiece.

By Faith McKay | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

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There’s a new original movie starring Zendaya and John David Washington on Netflix today. Malcolm & Marie is a romance with only two characters in the whole story. Uniquely, the movie was shot in black and white over a course of two weeks with only a 22 member crew during the pandemic. Those aren’t the only ways this movie stands out in the catalog of Zendaya’s work, though. 

Celebrating the release of her new movie, Zendaya took to social media. She shared her nerves as the world is now able to watch her new movie. On her Instagram, she posted, “Full of excitement and nervousness as this lil movie we made in lockdown with people I love is coming out in the next few hours. Nervousness for a few reasons. Normally I’m pretty self-critical and that leads me to be far too fearful to make things myself or trust myself enough to even try. This is really my first time believing that maybe I could. This is my first time being a leading lady, but also my first time being this creatively involved in something, producing something, co-financing something, owning something and sharing it all with my crew.”

Malcolm & Marie finds the two characters coming home from the premiere of his movie. John David Washinton plays a director. While the movie reveals a lot of reasons for tension between him and Zendaya, the initial issue is that they’re waiting for critics to start responding to the film. Just from watching the trailer, you can see the evening brings up a lot more issues in their complex relationship. 

As for how critics are actually responding to Malcolm & Marie itself, it hasn’t been great so far. This movie is a drama where the two main characters are in their apartment talking. The movie is just a great deal of talking. And sometimes, that can be great in a movie. Especially in a romance. However, reviewers largely feel this one fell short. It’s been said that the movie is “all talk, but with very little to say”. NPR says the story is as lost as the central couple. Time says that the movie is dull. Unfortunately, “dull” is a word a lot of reviewers have used while talking about this one. At the same time though, they said that Zendaya’s performance was dazzling.

While the critics have found Malcolm & Marie to be quite dull, there’s still quite a lot of hype for it on social media. Many on Twitter have fallen in love with the movie, especially on the part of Zendaya.

They love the drama. 

They love Zendaya’s character. 

And they think, overall, it was a masterpiece. 

Fans of Zendaya know that the writer and director of Malcolm & Marie, Sam Levinson, has also been a writer on her television series Euphoria for HBO Max. They’ve gotten a chance to get to know the two’s style and see them work together over the past few years. Many of them have been waiting for this movie to see what the two would make together and are happy to see it finally out in the world. 

The romance is certainly a big departure from Zendaya’s work so far. It will be interesting to see what she does next. 

We first got to know the actress as a child on the Disney Channel. She was on the television show Shake It Up and then K.C. Undercover. Proving she’s more than just an actress, she released a self-titled album in 2013. She brought her singing credentials with her in her role in The Greatest Showman, where she also got to pick up some skills as an acrobat. These days, we know her as MJ from Spider-Man: Homecoming and Rue Bennett in the HBO series Euphoria. These parts have been mixed in with a lot of guest roles on TV shows. Mostly, we’ve seen her play parts on the sidelines. But not in Malcolm & Marie. In this movie, there are only two characters, giving Zendaya a lot more screen time to show off.