The Herald - The Herald Magazine
PICK OF THIS WEEK’S FILMS
VENOM (15) NIGHT SCHOOL (12A)
Ruben Fleischer, director of Zombieland and Gangster Squad, masterminds this big budget spin-off from the Spider-Man universe, which introduces us to one of the webslinger’s most fearsome adversaries. Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), director of the mysterious Life Foundation, acquires amorphous extra-terrestrial matter called a symbiote, which has the ability to fuse with a host, creating a more powerful single entity. Using vulnerable people as test subjects, Drake secretly experiments with the symbiotes, which alter the human host’s personality. Tenacious investigative journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), whose girlfriend Anne Weying (Michelle Williams) works for a firm that represents Life Foundation, investigates Drake and he comes into uncomfortably close contact with one of the symbiotes. As a result, the entity fuses with Eddie. His body undergoes sudden transformations and he hears a chilling voice in his head. Slowly morphing into a hideous creature called Venom, Eddie attempts to keep control of his faculties but each spectacular battle brings him closer to surrendering to the dark side of his emotions.
Higher learning fails every test except base humour and lazy racial stereotypes in director Malcolm D Lee’s coming-of-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. It’s depressing that comic whirlwind Tiffany Haddish, who single-handedly made Girls Trip one of last year’s guiltiest pleasures, isn’t given the material to achieve top grades. Hart’s flawed hero grates on the nerves and co-stars hang performances on single character traits. Night School graduates without a single decent laugh.
THE WIFE (15)
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 timeframes, 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 (Jonathan Pryce) 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. The enduring pleasure of Runge’s film is witnessing the balance of power shift between well-drawn characters, building to a dazzling explosion of verbal fireworks that makes sense of throwaway comments and gestures that have tantalised us until this turning point.