New & now: Heretic

Hugh Grant ruins both blueberry pie, & 60s love songs.

Just having a nice chat, what could possibly go wrong.

I promise you, I won’t get too much into my long and ultimately fruitless foray into organized religion here. Talking about one’s “spiritual journey” is really only interesting if it involves taking mushrooms and seeing the face of God in a Taco Bell Crunchwrap; the closest I ever got was getting really drunk and realizing that Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” was the greatest song of all time. Like everyone who attempts to find religion and then later gives up on it, I went in looking for some sense of community and purpose, and left when it occurred to me “Hey wait a minute, this doesn’t make any sense.”

I took being Catholic seriously for a little while, mostly because my two closest friends when I was a teenager were Catholic¹, and I envied the sort of structure it gave their families. But I had a lot of questions, and once I was an adult and still trying to be Catholic, it occurred to me that I was lying about things, like promising the priest who performed my wedding ceremony that I’d only use the rhythm method as birth control. I sat through an entire class on that bullshit, wasting my time and taking up space that someone else who actually did intend to rely on the rhythm method could have used. For what? I had no idea by then. I liked the structure. I liked that there were rules, like how you had to dab holy water on yourself whenever you entered a church. I liked the pageantry and the drama. I liked that it was weirdly comforting to murmur the Hail Mary, and how you could say it so many times that it would just start sounding like gibberish after a while.

Speaking of gibberish, there was also the time I went to a born again Christian church and learned how to speak in tongues. But that’s a story for another time.

I am very old now, and I don’t think I’ll find a church that suits me just right, so I’ve piecemealed a sort of spirituality for myself, without describing it as “spiritual but not religious,” because that’s another thing the internet has ruined. I want desperately to believe in God, even though the mark that Catholicism has left on me is the unshakeable belief that He’s constantly mad at me about something, that I’ve failed him in my laziness, my ingratitude, and my uncharitable thoughts, even though I know there are many people out there (some of whom have just been reelected the leader of the free world) who do far worse while still insisting that they are godly people.

A very wise person once told me they thought I’d be happier if I was an atheist, and they were almost certainly right. But then I’d lose the comfort that such empty platitudes as “everything happens for a reason” and “there’s something bigger than us out there” give me. It’d make thinking about my own mortality (something that’s come up a lot for me in the past few years, with the dead kidneys and all) a little easier. It’d take away the cute (admittedly childish) fantasy I have of someday being reunited in Paradise with everyone who’s gone before me, right down to all of my pets (even the hamsters).

This is all an extremely roundabout way of saying that Heretic is not a comforting movie.

How you feel about Heretic will depend on how you feel about religion in general. If you’re already an atheist, you may roll your eyes and wonder what’s so scary about an aging man who takes sadistic pleasure in lecturing people about what a racket organized religion is. This is just an ordinary Tuesday if you’re Ricky Gervais or Bill Maher. If you’re rock-ribbed in your faith, you may be unmoved by his using the many variations of Monopoly as a metaphor for how all religions lift, borrow, and/or steal different aspects and tenets from each other. If, like me, you have occasional existential crises about God and His supposed plan in everything, it’s an unexpectedly unsettling and even emotional film, while also being quite funny at times.

There’s always been something a little sinister about Hugh Grant, even in supposed good guy roles. Part of that is merely his persona, a sourpuss who often acts as though he became famous against his will. While certainly not unattractive, I never quite understood why Renee Zellweger had such a hard time choosing between him and Colin Firth in the Bridget Jones movies. Yes, Mark Darcy was as neurotic as she was, but Daniel Cleaver seemed like the type of guy who would break up with you for eating eggs the “wrong” way. Who needs it? Not me.

ANYWAY, though he’s softened in recent years (evidently having five kids in less than a decade will do that to a guy), there’s still a little malevolent gleam in Grant’s eyes when he plays Mr. Reed, a seemingly kind man who invites Mormon missionaries Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) to his home for step one in what will hopefully (for them, at least) be his eventual conversion to their faith. But he has an agenda too, one that involves destroying these innocent kids’ beliefs, and then maybe forcing them into helping him do it to other people as well.

Mr. Reed’s agenda is, it must be said, comically elaborate, involving a literal dungeon in his house, timed door locks, and scented candles. Heretic loses its way a bit when it turns from psychological thriller to straight horror, but then regains its footing with an unexpectedly moving ending. It’s cleverly ambiguous: how you choose to interpret what happens to everyone relies upon whether you’re the type of person who believes in miracles, or a cynical realist. I want desperately to be the former, but am sadly coming to the conclusion that I might actually be the latter, so this broke me a bit.

Hugh Grant deserves all the praise he’s getting for a role that he clearly relished playing. I don’t know how he feels about religion personally, but as Mr. Reed he’s quietly predatory, exhibiting the worst aspects of the Reddit atheist bro who always thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, and refuses to accept that for many people faith is a comfort, not a cudgel. Writer/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods made the wise decision to omit a backstory, or a motivation any more specific than “it’s just something he enjoys doing.” There’s no sad tale about a Mrs. White-like religious freak mother in his past, or a devout wife who died a hard death from cancer or whatever. It’s just something he enjoys doing. He didn’t even specifically choose Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, they just had the bad luck to be assigned to fulfill his requested home visit. Like The Strangers and Halloween (minus all the “they’re actually related” bullshit), it’s the randomness that makes it scary.

Both Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East bring a quiet strength to their performances that adds to the surprise emotional aspects of the film. Though they’re obviously scared of Mr. Reed, his endless monologuing does not seem to actually be moving either of their needles in the direction he wants. Sister Paxton in particular, sheltered but not stupid, is unwavering in her faith, clinging to it even when she eventually witnesses things beyond her comprehension.

I wish I could do that, but I can’t. Mr. Reed’s nonsense would have worked on me, much to his glee, I’m sure. I think what gets to me is the gloating that professional atheists do when they’ve gotten under a religious person’s skin, without recognizing that what they’ve done is proselytize and convert someone. Yes, organized religion and belief in God, any god, has done more damage to humanity than anything else in the history of man. But faith? Real faith? What do we do when we lose that? There’s no triumph. It just feels very lonely.

1. Ironically, none of us have set foot in a church except for weddings or funerals in years.