Thrilling ‘Wasp’ more than lives up to the buzz
In the two-handed thriller “The Wasp,” the sting is the thing. It pierces the skin and penetrates deeply, striking a nerve or two in its unflinching examination of bullying, cruelty and a long-festering desire for revenge. It’s also a showcase for two terrific character actresses in Naomie Harris and Natalie Dormer to expertly demonstrate their prowess when allowed to carry a picture, particularly one as challenging as “The Wasp.”
One is white, the other Black. But race is never an issue. There is, however, an obvious divide in their characters’ social and economic status. One rich, one poor, yet sharing the experience of being victims of two very different forms of domestic abuse. Oh, and neither woman is what you’d term warm and fuzzy. Rather, they are mean and vindictive, taking turns wielding power in a tense confrontation between former schoolgirl mates who haven’t seen each other in decades.
So, why now? What motivation does Heather have for attempting to rekindle a friendship that ended in the wake of a shocking incident of sexual and psychological assault? It’s not giving too much away to say it involves a murder-for-hire scheme that’s not at all what it first seems. But don’t get hung up on who wants to slay whom. That’s not at all what fuels Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s screen adaptation of her award-winning play. It’s much more complex, encompassing the lasting effects of coercion and an unending cycle of familial violence.
It begins on the coast near Malcolm’s teenage hometown of Bath, where in the cold opening we’re presented with a woman heartbroken and in tears. We soon learn her name is Heather (Harris), an upper-middle-class wife whose life hasn’t turned out at all as she had hoped. Childless and in the last gasp of a doomed marriage to her philandering hubby, Simon (Dominic Allburn), Heather seeks immediate release from her perpetual sadness. Money and wealth clearly have not brought her happiness.
Not that Dormer’s poor and overburdened Carla is any better off. With a drunken layabout husband (Rupert Holliday-Evans), a dead-end job, four kids and a fifth on the way, Carla is so desperate and miserable that she’d kill for the promise of a bit more financial stability. So, she eventually succumbs to Heather’s persistent offers to earn a small fortune being her surrogate. But why, after all these years? That’s the question rattling around in Carla’s chronically cynical mind. She thinks she knows the answer, but she has no idea what’s about to befall her.
It culminates with Heather and Carla engaged in the equivalent of a steel cage match in which mutilation and death are very real possibilities. Who will prevail? Malcolm’s devious script offers more dynamic shifts than a presidential election, as the time nears for whom the bell tolls. What ensues is often unsettling, but never without a clever element of gallows humor.
Accordingly, Malcolm’s biting, pithy dialogue drips with pettiness and an anger that’s been repressed for far too long. But what’s at the heart of it? Director Guillem Morales is in no hurry to reveal the why and wherefore, opting for a slow boil method by which the two women confront the inner demons of inequality and domestic strife, while at the same time embracing victimhood like it was some sort of badge of courage.
The destination is a stunning finale few will see coming, nor soon forget. Ditto for the two actresses, both at the top of their craft, drawing us ever further into their characters’ pathological game of cat and mouse. Who will win? Does it matter? Should we care? Malcolm doesn’t always provide the answers but she does know how to pen a taut, compelling thriller bearing no indication of its stage origins.
Realistic? Not in the least. But in addition to a subtle commentary on how we treat one another these days, it is an apt allegory in proving rage and resentment are the ugliest elements of human nature. Are we so morally bankrupt that we’d be willing to commit murder? And at what price?
They are uncomfortable questions and Malcolm presents them as such. For “The Wasp” is a film that will most definitely make you flinch. But as I mentioned, it will also stir unexpected laughter. Above all, this hornet’s nest of ideas will provoke thought. Not just about gender roles and man’s inhumanity to man but also the crucial necessity that we cling tight to our fast-fading empathy.
Without it what are we? Have we devolved into predatory insects as merciless as the film’s bogeybug, the tarantula hawk, a wasp that buries its eggs inside a spider’s abdomen, and once hatched, the larva devour the arachnid alive? Don’t be too quick to dismiss the analogy. It might well be at our peril. And the result will most definitely sting.
Movie review
The Wasp
Rated: R for language, some violence, sexual assault
Cast: Naomie Harris, Natalie Dormer and Dominic Allburn
Director: Guillem Morales
Writer: Morgan Lloyd Malcolm
Runtime: 96 minutes
Where: In theaters Aug. 30 (limited)
Grade: B
