Let’s think about Zendaya’s Mac and Cheese in Malcolm & Marie

John David Washington, Zendaya, organic milk.
Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

Malcolm and Marie, the artistic film that Zendaya and John David Washington shot in secret with Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, is coming to Netflix on February 5th. While much of the plot’s details remain secret, we can at least deduce from the trailer that he focuses on the stormy relationship of Zendaya’s character with a lover whose name has all the lyrics M, AN, Ç in your name. We are talking, of course, about that fickle lover in the middle of the night: packed macaroni and cheese.

In the trailer, Zendaya prepares some macaroni and cheese in a sleek, modern California kitchen in a house far from the city, while fighting John David Washington – a tertiary character, presumably, after the pasta – and wearing a frankly dress gorgeous with lots of exposed skin. There is a dangerous interaction in the act, since she has to boil water, and I feel the risks she took on the set, since I have a scar from pouring hot tea on me while wearing a sleeveless shirt earlier this week. “Mystery,” Zendaya announces off while pouring pasta from a box into a pan of bubbling water. “The unknown is what sustains the tension in a relationship.”

Double, double, toil and …
Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

Then, incongruously, the trailer shows Zendaya opening a piece of butter, which looks like something she would only be able to do minutes later, when the pasta was finished and the cheese sauce ready to be made. I just hope that this reveals that Marie has a strange cooking process or that the continuity error is corrected in the final cut. Anyway.

This is also how I react to the unknown.
Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

While Marie argues with Malcolm, who insists that she is angry – Yes, obviously, why make macaroni and cheese in a calm emotional state? – she spills the pasta in a colander, jumps a few times and looks at Malcolm. The sound of hot water whistling elsewhere indicates that the two plan to combine their macaroni and cheese with tea (or that the trailer editor thought the whistle would be cool – either).

Where is she going with the colander !! What happened to the pan !!

It is a deeply glamorous act that inspires many questions. Most important among them: Where did she put the dough after taking the sieve out of the sink? Is she using another pan or bowl for the cheese sauce? Why, when that first pan looked really good and expensive? Marie! A waste of mess in the kitchen. I assume that this is another key character trait.

Zendaya, sad in a bath (which is not full of macaroni and cheese).
Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

From then on, the trailer abandons macaroni and cheese for an intense black and white frown on the dynamics of the relationship of this human couple with whom I care less. But then! We return briefly to the macaroni and cheese when we see Marie carrying a pot and turning with Malcolm on a triptych.

Father son Holy Spirit.
Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

Clearly, this is a religious experience for them. And it offers an opportunity to take a closer look at the specific brand that Zendaya is preparing, which I have increased in favor of a complete mac-and-cheese journalism. At first, I assumed that Malcolm and Marie would be Annie’s people, because they seem a little pretentious, but that big bunch ‘roni is quite unmistakable: this is a Kraft box.

You are welcome to this investigative journalism. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

You are welcome to this investigative journalism. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix