Heretic
A gripping psychological thriller with religious horror elements, powered by a taut script and great performances, including a gleefully macabre opportunity for Hugh Grant to play against type.
Premise: Two Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) visit the home of Mr Reed (Hugh Grant) and his wife, who have previously said they would be interested in learning more about Mormonism. But as their conversation develops, it becomes clear that there’s more to Mr Reed than meets the eye.
Review:
After breaking into the mainstream with their script for A Quiet Place, filmmaking duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods followed that up by writing and directing the sci-fi “spaceman v dinosaurs” thriller 65 – but for my money, Heretic is the best film that they’ve directed so far. What’s interesting is that all three of their biggest films are focused on a very small number of characters: A Quiet Place really only has the four family members, 65 just has the two main survivors, and now Heretic is effectively carried by its three central performances.
Front and centre in the marketing – and rightly so – is Hugh Grant in arguably his least “Hugh-Grant-y” role so far. He seems to have been having a ball for the last few years playing entertainingly eccentric characters that are a million miles away from the romcom roles he was saddled with for decades – his comedic performances in the likes of Paddington 2, Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves and Wonka were a joy to behold, and he was hissably sleazy in The Gentlemen. But in Heretic he gets the chance to explore his most memorably unsettling character yet, the manipulative Mr Reed.
“…Hugh Grant’s performance is sinisterly entertaining throughout…”
I don’t want to say too much specific about Mr Reed, as one of the joys of watching Heretic is watching things slowly unfold and escalate – but it’s fair to say that his intentions may not be as innocent as they first appear. But what’s really interesting is the way in which Mr Reed, in Hugh Grant’s hands, goes about doing what he’s doing. Mr Reed is outwardly charming, courteous and apologetic, even when events take a turn, and he’s rarely overtly threatening, instead portraying events as being reasonable while insisting that the other characters have the power to choose what happens next. He’s certainly the kind of antagonist who wouldn’t see himself as a villain, but rather, as someone who holds up a mirror to uncomfortable truths.
As a result, the first half of the film is a relatively slow-burn psychological thriller, more focused on the mounting sense of dread and peril, as Mr Reed engages Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) in what starts out as a relatively amicable theological debate before developing into something more. The second half of the film does lean more heavily into the religious horror elements, and some may feel that certain developments stretch credibility a bit too far (in comparison to the relatively grounded first half) – but I loved the escalation in the final act, and felt that Hugh Grant’s performance ensured that Mr Reed remained sinisterly entertaining throughout.
“…Sophie Thatcher & Chloe East give excellent performances…”
As good as Hugh Grant is, the movie wouldn’t work without the excellent performances of Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as the Mormon missionaries. I was already relatively familiar with Sophie Thatcher’s work, and I thought she did a great job here of bringing out the doubts hidden under the surface of Sister Barnes, a young woman who came to Mormonism later in life – but the revelation in this film for me was Chloe East, who I hadn’t seen in anything before. She adds so many subtle layers to her performance as Sister Paxton, a timid novice missionary still looking for her first conversion, who’s surface-level unrelenting optimism masks her own insecurities.
What makes the tension in the first half of the film work so well is Sophie Thatcher’s and Chloe East’s performances, as Sisters Barnes and Paxton gradually begin to realise that something is wrong, but their good manners and social mores mean they can’t simply grab their belongings and run away, for fear of being seen as rude. These scenes are a great exploration of how we can all ignore the warning signs, suppress our natural safety instincts, and tell ourselves lies we know not to be true, all because we “don’t want to make a scene”. Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East give great non-verbal performances as their false smiles and brave faces hide their growing sense of panic while they make polite conversation with Mr Reed.
“…an intellectual game of cat-and-mouse…”
As I said, I don’t want to say too much about where the plot goes after the initial set up, but I found it gripping and entertaining throughout – tense and nerve-wracking in places, but without losing its sense of fun. This low budget gem (it only cost £10m, which is less than the catering budget on most films) is essentially an intellectual game of cat-and-mouse more than it is a traditional horror movie or serial-killer-thriller, but the end result was unexpectedly enjoyable and well worth a couple of hours of your time.
