'Heretic' elicits chills by attacking manipulators

When Scott Beck and Bryan Woods wrote and directed "Heretic," they really went all-in on combining "Saw" with comparative theology.

This is not a film for all audiences, even more than most horror movies. While some families might share an appreciation for psychological thrillers, the title of "Heretic" should be your first clue that it devotes a significant amount of screentime to debating religion.

Given the number of impending holiday dinners already haunted by the prospect of post-election political discussions among distant relatives, I can certainly understand wanting to avoid a film so concerned with such a "third rail" topic.

But the secret of "Heretic" is that, for as much as it leads off by sounding like a highbrow fish-in-a-barrel polemic against faith, its true target is that class of abusers who manipulate through gaslighting and unspoken coercion.

Admittedly, the setup reads like a stereotypical Hollywood elitist screed against believers, as two young women who are doing their rounds as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints visit the out-of-the-way home of an older gentleman, who had specifically requested to hear more from their church.

Mr. Reed, played by Hugh Grant, invites the pair in with politeness and earnest curiosity, but in spite of the girls' naivete, they soon spot a succession of red flags suggesting the well-read self-described truth-seeker is not a safe person to be around.

Speaking as someone who's found most of Grant's more popular output to be cloying, I was not expecting him to give the level of performance he delivered here. What makes it even more remarkable is that he's still leaning on all his same signature tics.

Mr. Reed is just socially awkward enough to be charming at first, lulling the young women into lowering their guard, and Grant's patter still strikes his old rom-com balance of verbally fumbling while also being overly chatty. But as the warning signs mount, it comes across more like a predator playing with its prey.

Be aware, there is a huge amount of dialogue devoted to the historic progression of the Abrahamic faiths alone. And yes, part of Mr. Reed's intimidation factor is that he's studied theology for decades, whereas Sisters Barnes and Paxton (played by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) mostly know the Book of Mormon as a set of notecards that they've memorized.

Just as I was ready to dismiss this film as a one-sided Socratic argument against religious faith, our missionaries respond with a formidable deconstruction of Mr. Reed's reasoning and motives.

For all that Mr. Reed rails against organized religion overall, and the Mormon faith in particular for taking away the freedoms of young women such as our missionary duo, he's the one who weaponizes those polite young women's own sense of social obligations against them, to justify the torments to which he subjects them.

However much our game master claims to be driven by the desire for enlightenment, all he really wants is to rig his own experiment to prove correct his pre-existing conclusions, and he's undone when the women he's using as pawns surprise him by defying his expectations.

I wouldn't call the denouement of this film a defense of religious belief, but it does explicitly assert that the compassion for others that can animate many faiths is innately superior to coldly dehumanizing others out of a dismissive sense of one's own intellectual superiority.

'Agatha All Along'

Wrapping up with a couple of notes about recently completed streaming series, "Agatha All Along" on Disney+ made excellent use of theatrical legend Patti LuPone in a mind-bending time-travel episode whose writing was meticulously well-constructed.

As brief as LuPone's role was, it's as deserving of an Emmy nomination as Deirdre O'Connell, who played the mother of Colin Farrell's Oswald Cobb, aka "The Penguin" on Max, with a fury to knock even Cristin Milioti's fearsome Sofia Gigante on her heels.

Perhaps not coincidentally, both older actresses played women fighting the effects of dementia (or a magical nonchronological perception that mirrored many of dementia's symptoms, in LuPone's case), but the characters' declining faculties only served to underscore the fierceness of the actresses' performances.

As much as "Boston Legal" and "The Practice" redeemed William Shatner's acting in the eyes of many, enough to earn him two Emmy awards, it's nice to see more women are also being afforded "lion in winter" roles as they age.

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
[email protected]