Malcolm & Marie (16+, 106mins) Directed by Sam Levinson For those who haven’t yet seen her Emmy Award-winning performance in
Euphoria, this offers further proof that Zendaya is one of the finest actors of her generation. The 24-year-old has also well and truly left her Disney Channel teen years behind, following up her startling turn as former drug addict Rue with this tour-de-force as the complicated Marie in what is an audacious, highly charged relationship drama. It’s 1am and she and film-maker husband Malcolm Elliott (
Tenet’s John David Washington) have just returned from the glitzy premiere of his latest movie. But while he’s buzzing from the adulation heaped upon him, she’s clearly in a different head-space. While he chooses the tunes, she stormily stirs some mac ‘n’ cheese. As he tries to spark up some romance, she cooly asks him if he’d like “salted or unsalted butter”. Eventually, her detachment gets the better of him.