Shout! Studios
Thrillers are an interesting genre — in some ways they are considered ‘elevated’ horror, but usually a big differentiating factor is that it’s about the suspense and potential danger than a crazed or supernatural monster with a lot of jump scares and gratuitous violence. Instead the ‘message’ is more front and center, and we usually get a lot of twists and turns — Gone Girl being one of the best examples of this sort of concept. So I always like to see a slightly different take on it.
The Wasp comes from director Guillem Morales and written by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, adapting her own 2015 play onto the screen. That sort of transition makes sense, because most of the movie is conversations, often very tense and complicated ones — but the director is able to elevate the non-verbal moments with interesting compositional choices and reasonable trickery to hide the twists in plain sight.
The movie stars Naomie Harris as Heather, a well-to-do woman in some British neighborhood, seemingly driven a bit mad by a wasp infestation in her house. After she gets a little too obsessed with it and uncovers a wasp’s nest, she recalls a moment as a young teen girl where she and some other friend, Carla, find a dying bird — and Carla finds a rock to put it out of its misery.
Heather seeks out the now adult and very pregnant Carla (Natalie Dormer), with four other children who is in contrast working as a cashier, to catch up and give her a proposition — she has discovered her husband has been cheating on her, or at least planning to with a year of lies, and wants to have him killed. And she knows Carla is desperate for money to pay her inflated bills, especially with another one on the way — and Carla’s husband not being so useful either.
At first, of course, Carla refuses the offer, she’s no sociopath — despite the memory of that bird. But eventually she relents, and the movie begins to delve into the next part of the plan — over a series of scenes and tense conversations, truths are uncovered, plans are executed, and twist after twist are revealed. Of course, not at the Wild Things ludicrous level, although some of it strains credulity a little — or more than a little.
But what keeps the silly, twisty tale above water are the compelling performances from each of these leads and the well-handled direction by Guillem Morales to seamlessly transition between genres as the story careens out of control. I can’t say too much more about that, since part of the fun are the reveals — the movie keeps things pretty tight in around 96 minutes, and moves along at a brisk pace before you can get too annoyed or tired with a certain scene.
I’m pleased enough with it — it’s a slightly above average sort of thriller, with a plot that’s a bit too much to really make sense and a backstory that’s a bit too convoluted to really stick with you, and without any more expansive themes to really enter into a larger cultural conversation. But considering the low budget and ‘play-like’ aspect, it works pretty well and has a pretty fun conclusion. Not a bad choice for a rainy day.
The Wasp has a run time of 1 hour 36 minute, and is rated R for some violence, sexual assault, and language.
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