Wait...Jar Jar ISN’T a major religious figure?
Poking gaping, stigmatic holes in religious doctrine is nothing new – hell, it’d be a national pastime if it weren’t so goddamn easy and delusionals weren’t such braying, jackass whiners – but the latest ‘from the writers of A Quiet Place’ because, like Antoine Fuqua and Training Day, they will forever be inextricably linked to their biggest, most lucrative hit, posits deeply cynical skepticism within the psychological thriller realm. The result is a sharply written, cracklingly tense gabfest with strong performances which only falters when trotting out routine, third act cliches out of commercial narrative uncertainty. And yes, South Park is mentioned, though only the musical, not the terrific Mormon ep from Season 7. “Our faces are painted!”
Heretic is a movie with ideas. Well-worn ideas often accompanied by a snide, even condescending intonation, but when they’re delivered with effortless, sinister charm by former heartthrob-turned-tabloid scandal bad boy and finally winningly smarmy character actor Hugh Grant, who am I to complain? The “icky” questions Grant poses to missionaries Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher regarding modern revelation, monotheism, and the polite indulging of deceptions in service of capitalistic, societal control are indeed “worthy of conversation” and Beck & Woods construct a mightily dense rebuff of religious belief with a first act that practically plays like an especially engrossing one act play. Echoes of the Speak No Evil remake and Midsommar as well as more depraved efforts like Martyrs surface throughout, yet Grant’s obviously twisted modus operandi remains tantalizingly uncertain until the final act. Up until then, this “super neat and thoughtful host” could be a very well-read nutbag or he might be giving these young ladies an invaluable and enlightening lesson which could enrich their lives. Might.
Grant gets the lion's share of dialogue and he’s mesmerizing; expertly injecting a cheerful, almost homey informality to the increasingly disturbing mind games he inflicts upon East and Thatcher. “People think we’re weird.” Beck/Woods have a grand time dreaming up the semi-oblivious, PG-rated dialogue we’ve come to expect from Mormons on a mission to spread the word and they cleverly subvert expectations in terms of where the wind will blow in terms of character autonomy and resilience; particularly after an unexpected, late-stage twist. It’s telling that – like Haunt – they've chosen to (mostly) stick to a single location whose claustrophobic intricacy is only matched by its waterlogged dankness. Wildly tense set pieces like the careful theft of matches keep this lengthy, but far-from uninvolving thriller on track and it’s only during the finale that the revelations and psychobabble strain believability and feel obligatory. As Grant callously intones: “it’s an iteration...obscuring the original” and Heretic does its own fine, nerve-wracking thing with a common genre formula.
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