Movie Review: The Wasp (2024)

Genre: Suspense  

Director: Guillem Morales  

Starring: Naomie Harris, Natalie Dormer  

Running Time: 96 minutes  

Synopsis: In London, Heather (Naomie) is living a comfortable middle-class life but is frustrated with her inability to get pregnant and her increasingly inattentive husband Simon, who may be having an affair. She approaches her former school friend Carla (Natalie Dormer) and offers her a lot of money to murder Simon. The pregnant, penniless, and tough-as-nails Carla is raising three kids, and accepts the money-for-murder arrangement. But what starts out as a plan to kill a husband turns into a much more complex plot.

What Works Well: Written by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, this play adaptation drips with Hitchcockian intent. The cat and mouse game between Heather and Carla is filled with secrets, revelations, mounting psychological suspense, and unexpected twists, with stated intentions obscuring hidden motives. Flashbacks to the women's days as young students gradually fill in the blanks of their characters and relationship, revealing a complex power dynamic, incidents of bullying, and layers of victimhood driving present interactions.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot leans on some flakiness and coincidences, and only works when certain decisions are made at exactly the right time. In retrospect, it's difficult to believe Carla's inability to recollect her school-era behaviour.

Key Quote:

Carla (to Heather): Are you sure you want him actually dead?



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