#MovieReview: Hugh Grant impresses as Heretic’s intellectual villain

Heretic wastes an excellent first act as it unravels, but includes a fantastic Hugh Grant performance that is worth watching.

Set in the heart of Mormon country in Utah, Heretic follows two young door-to-door missionaries who end up inside Mr Reed’s (Grant) house to shelter from stormy weather.

Little do the two women know that he has orchestrated the entire meeting, later trapping them as a forced audience for his ideas on their religion, among a series of other topics.

Grant plays Mr Reed as something between a ‘public intellectual’ in the mould of Jordan Peterson and a self-proclaimed messianic religious figure high on their own supply.

It is a whirlwind performance that will almost have you agreeing with his point of view, before the house of cards comes crashing down and his hollow intellectualism is exposed.

The set-up in the first act of Heretic is genuinely thrilling and creepy in a way that anyone who has been stubbornly talked down to will understand. But it is unfortunately all wasted in the second hour, which becomes a C-grade horror movie with little to say.

Given its subject matter, Heretic has naturally drawn criticism from some supporters of the Church of Latter-day Saints, but I personally found the movie to be very clear on who is being made fun of. The two missionaries, played by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, are firm in their faith and make as reasonable decisions as can be expected within the thriller plot.

And while religion is the main debate topic in the movie, the intention is rather to parody people who are so convinced of their own intelligence that they are unwilling to budge.
Maybe just turn it off after the first hour.

Rated 18 for Violence and Horror.

3/5.

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