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Michelle Pfeiffer: Ant-Man and the Wasp


Revisiting and celebrating the work of Michelle Pfeiffer, the best actress of my lifetime.

Spoiler alert: I'll be discussing plot points for the new film Ant-Man and the Wasp.

*****

If you've spent any time at all on the internet this week, chances are you've noticed the gushing adulation and hyperbolic lovefest surrounding Michelle Pfeiffer's performance in the newly released, and extremely fun, Ant-Man and the Wasp.

It's fascinating to behold this lovefest—and also to be an active participant in it! Obviously, I spent some time on Twitter praising Pfeiffer's work as Janet van Dyne, the original Wasp, after seeing the movie. And of course I'll be heaping more praise on her work here. Yet, what's so intriguing about it all is that she only appears in the film briefly! It's a glorified cameo. She has, max, fifteen minutes of screen time (an awfully generous estimate on my part), but she is the highlight of the film, no question.


The main plot revolves around Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) trying to locate Janet—Hope's mother, Hank's wife. Janet has been lost in the Quantum Realm for thirty years. In a way then, the film revolves around Pfeiffer, offering a wonderful meta-commentary on the living legend's career, and our relationship to her work.

Listen to any die-hard pfan (ahem), or even slightly perceptive critic (ahem), and you'll hear how Pfeiffer is often the best part of her films, even when she's in a supporting role. Think New Year's Eve, Sweet Liberty, and Personal Effects, to name a few. We realize a universal truth: movies are better when Michelle Pfeiffer appears in them.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is aware of this fact, and plays off it brilliantly. After opening with a flashback featuring a de-aged Pfeiffer as young Janet, the film then withholds her from us for much its running time—"When the hell are we going to get more Pfeiffer?!?" Finally, present-day Janet is revealed, still alive, still looking like the Goddess she is, all while kicking ass in the Quantum Realm.


That first moment, when Hank finds Janet and she removes her Wasp face mask to reveal the stunningly beautiful and luminous sixty year old Pfeiffer underneath, is breathtaking. I gasped in the theater. The film very much plays off our collective love and respect for Pfeiffer in order to tease us into sticking around, and when it finally gives us Pfeiffer, our patience is rewarded tenfold. Janet is both fierce warrior and compassionate wife and mother. Her determination is evidenced by her connecting telepathically with Scott (who's taken his own trip into the Quantum Realm). She basically mind-melds with Scott, helping guide him, her daughter Hope, and her husband Hank to her location. In the grand tradition of resolutely independent Pfeiffer women, Janet doesn't need saving; she saves herself through genius-level intelligence and unyielding resolve.

As often happens over the course of her career, Pfeiffer is the heart and soul of the film. It's as if the filmmakers were consciously rewarding audiences for their decades of Pfeiffer pfandom. Certainly, it's disappointing that she wasn't given more screen time, but in a way her limited appearance only enhances her legend—she appears like a Goddess, sent from beyond our own dimension, bringing a sense of calm and happiness to the final act of the film. Hope has her mother back, Hank his wife. And we have Michelle Pfeiffer, looking ethereally beautiful and performing with her usual elan, charm, and elegant grace.


Janet will never be considered one Pfeiffer's best roles. But it seems apparent she is already a much beloved Pfeiffer character. Through its elevation of Janet's importance to the central plot, Ant-Man and the Wasp validates everything we crazy pfans have been shouting from rooftops for years now. In our minds, all of her films revolve around her greatness. So, it's simply delightful how this big-budget Marvel Studios film both understands and honors our affection for her and her work.
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  1. Paul SJuly 22, 2018 at 6:55 AM

    I haven't seen Ant-Man and the Wasp, hadn't intended to until I read your post, but as always you're pfabulous prose has convinced me. I do have a tough time with modern films, even when they pfeature Pfeiffer. Times change. Michelle has changed with them, maybe I should too.

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