NIGHT SCHOOL
★★★★★ (12)
HIGHER learning fails every test except base humour and lazy racial stereotypes in director Malcolm D Lee’s comingof-middle-age comedy.
Based on a script credited to six writers including leading man Kevin Hart, Night School revises the tropes of high school movies since The Breakfast Club but can’t muster an original thought in almost two hours.
Teddy Walker (Hart) is the leading salesman of grills at Joe’s BBQ City in Atlanta.
But if he wants to secure a well-paid career and take care of his girlfriend Lisa, the high school drop-out must go back to the classroom to pass his General Educational Development test (GED).
Teddy enrols in night classes with a motley crew of misfits including Jaylen (Romany Malco), aspiring singer-songwriter Luis (Al Madrigal), proud father Mackenzie (Rob Riggle), unhappy mother Theresa (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and teenage reprobate Mila (Anne Winters), who is begrudgingly at school to avoid juvenile detention.
A convict called Bobby (Jacob Batalan) attends remotely via video.
The group’s no-nonsense teacher, Carrie (Tiffany Haddish), warns that she will not tolerate timewasters.
Night School graduates without a single decent laugh with Hart’s flawed hero grating on the nerves.
Narrative arcs trace predictable paths and the final 10 minutes are beset with cloying sentimentality.
THE mercurial Glenn Close makes a compelling bid for her seventh Oscar nomination in the title role of director Bjorn Runge’s slow-burning drama adapted from the novel by Meg Wolitzer.
Oscillating between two time frames, The Wife is a meticulously constructed character study, which exposes the steely resolve and indignation of a woman who has honoured her wedding vows to a man with a roving eye and an insatiable hunger for recognition.
“There’s nothing more dangerous than a writer whose feelings have been hurt,” observes Close’s dutiful spouse, a casual aside which resonates with increasing ferocity as the plot unravels and dark secrets are unearthed.
Everything we need to know about the central couple’s marriage seems to be encapsulated in an opening bedroom scene.
Close wearily fends off her husband as he exercises his early morning conjugal rights.
“You don’t have to do anything, just lie there,” he tells her, focused solely on personal gratification.
The enduring pleasure of