Heretic

Hugh Grant is Evil, in a movie that tries/fails to say something about religion.

I never saw this used anywhere, but I love painted posters, and this is terrific. From TheMovieDatabase at this link, fair use.

Heretic (2024). Grade: D+

Since everyone likes Hugh Grant now, when did you first like him? Was it in the stammering/nervous guy romantic comedies like Four Weddings and a Funeral or Love Actually?

I wasn’t a fan of those. They weren’t bad. They were just not my sort of thing. And I really didn’t buy Hugh Grant — who was so impossibly cute — as someone who’d be remotely shy around beautiful women. For years, whenever I saw him, I wished it was Richard E. Grant, instead.

I found him tolerable in Notting Hill — after all, he’s playing a guy meeting a big movie star, being shy would fit. And in Sense and Sensibility, since anyone who’s NOT floored by Emma Thompson is an idiot. (Here’s looking at you, Mr. Kenneth ex-Thompson.)

But the first thing I really enjoyed Grant (Hugh) in was About a Boy. Because he was playing someone a little smarmy/self-satisfied, which is what I imagine life is like for cute people with money. (I’m impossibly gorgeous myself, but broke.)

And I loved his work with Stephen Frears. In Florence Foster Jenkins, he’s the kept man of wealthy, deluded wanna-be opera singer Meryl Streep; he’s tender, protective, and utterly aware he’s a mooch with style. It’s hilarious. And, even better, the brilliant TV miniseries A Very English Scandal, where he plays a hoity-toity Member of Parliament who wants to cover up his latest fling with a boy toy. He’s absolutely and increasingly terrible at everything he does, and it’s magnificent to watch him squirm. He’s a worm, and a very funny one.

If you haven’t seen A Very English Scandal, check it out! And if you haven’t seen Heretic, you should probably keep it that way.

This is written/directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who wrote the moderately entertaining A Quiet Place. I was half-bored by the thing, but it was a huge hit, largely because people like the stars in it (I’m eh on both). I am told that the American Sign Language used in the movie was far better than it’s generally depicted; it probably helped that actor Millicent Simmonds is someone who lost her hearing at a young age and is fluent in ASL.

The story here involves two LDS missionaries who follow-up on Grant’s stated interest in learning more about the faith. (And both young actors, Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, grew up as LDS members.) It turns out he’s a creepy madman who plans to trap them in order to make them understand that all faith is Stoopids.

That’s a spoiler alert, but not really. You’ll see it coming almost immediately. The question is, why don’t the characters see it? You could argue that it doesn’t matter, and he was planning to lock them in as soon as they entered the house. OK, fine.

Yet the movie is directed in a way to make everything about Grant’s house horror-movie-creepy, from the sound the lights make to the dimness of a hallway Grant goes into to get some “pie.” And we know that at least one of these women is a bit world-wise; she’d feel the vibe to be off pretty quickly. (We find out later that the other one is smarter than she originally seems, too.) Granted, when you go into anyone’s house, you don’t expect them to trap you for nefarious purposes. Yet I think a bright young lady who was originally from Philadelphia would be a little quicker to stand up for herself than this.

The whole pacing is mostly maddening, to me. Doors sloooowly open. When the women are trying to start matches for an escape plan, match after match lights, then goes out. A creepy character’s face is sloooowly revealed. And so on. All of this is supposed to build tension. It just bored the hell out of me. Get to the plot, already. Which there isn’t much of. You could cut this down to 60 minutes (from 111) and it wouldn’t lose anything.

It’s a delight, at first, to see Grant resurrecting his old stammering/awkward character — the one I used to tolerate, at best! It’s clear he’s doing it to deceive, because we’ve seen the cover art on the box or read about what the movie is. And I waited for this twist on the former Grant to turn wickedly funny. But he’s not given anything funny to do with it. There’s practically no humor in the movie whatsoever, except for a feeble stab in the beginning that involves the ladies talking about a condom ad. It doesn’t land.

I think you could make a very funny movie about an arrogant atheist who pushes his nonbelief on others. (McKay Coppins called this “A Horror Movie About An Atheist Who Won’t Shut Up,” and describes it from the point of view of someone who’s been an LDS missionary.) You could easily do that with Hugh Grant in the lead. You could even make it funny and scary, although that would be very tricky to write. The filmmakers said they spent a decade learning about religion and reading Richard Dawkins books in order to finish the script. Well, unless you’re reading Dawkins on evolutionary biology (I liked The Ancestor’s Tale), you’re not really learning anything of use.

Grant gives a advertiser pitch-like, prop-heavy speech about how all religions draw on elements of earlier ones — from my understanding of the subjects being discussed, none of what he says is wrong. (It’s also nothing that should take you remotely near a decade to learn as a scriptwriter.) Afterwards, he sweeps all his props away with a flourish, which would involve cleaning up lots of little pieces. It’s dumb. So’s almost every plot point in this movie. And it’s not compelling or entertaining enough for the dumb plot to be tolerable.

I don’t for a second believe that the character who references a particular study about prayer’s healing powers would be aware of that study. I don't understand why there's no motivation for the creepy Grant character to be out to get missionaries. (And, as it happens, he's been doing this for awhile, and has completely gotten away with it, which makes no bloody sense at all.)

I wanted to like this, because I like Grant. And he’s still good, and the young actors are worth keeping an eye on for the future. And as someone whose fundamentalist upbringing was really hard to go through, I’m fine with a movie that questions religion. Just be more creative about it. What we’ve got here is leftover Aleister Crowley crud (which is a visual cliche, to boot).

I don’t think I’ll be running away from any future films written/directed by Beck/Woods; they’re not offensively bad. I won’t be running towards anything they do, either.

For another, better, “trapped in Crazy Guy’s house” movie, see 10 Cloverfield Lane. For a far better thing about doubting religion, watch Julia Sweeney's outstanding one-act stage show “Letting Go of God.” It’s honest and intimate, and not condescending in the Dawkins way. It's her story about what she went through in her personal wrestling with faith. It’s more genuinely spiritual than fundamentalism is, and more questioning than arrogant atheism. You don't have to be an atheist to understand the emotions she's expressing.

And for a better Evil Hugh, see A Very English Scandal. In which Grant tries to be Evil, and fails atrociously at it, and it's loads of fun. Don't watch it at Bald Bond Villain Prime; use your library.