Though none of this week’s movies are of particular political relevance, it’s certainly a queasy sensation to write something before an election that won’t be read until afterward. Particularly an election this consequential, with questions like “Will our democratic systems prevail?” hanging in the air. Faith that they will prevail is shaky, doubt of all kinds epidemic. [Update: Those fears were justified.] Faith in other forms is key to some new films, though likewise it is invariably being shaken, if not downright throttled.
Perhaps an even cruder test of faith than the election—I know, I know, nothing could be more crude than That Guy—comprises the gist of Heretic, whose main lure is casting veteran light comedian Hugh Grant as an unholy terror. Naive chatterbox Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and the more intelligently guarded Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) are young Mormon women doing their obligatory missionary service in what looks like a northwestern city. (The film was largely shot in Vancouver). While most strangers ignore their proselytizing overtures, the last stop of the day is at the home of someone who actually requested their visit.
Mr. Reed (Grant) persuades them inside from a rainstorm, promising as chaperone a wife who never actually materializes. Soon his questions about church doctrine and history grow so unsettling, his guests—when left alone for a moment—decide to flee. At which point they discover they are locked in. Eventually they must penetrate the inner depths of the house, where they’ll find their trials are only beginning in the “game” Reed has elaborately, malevolently planned for believers like them.
Written by co-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (“Haunt”), Heretic is indeed a horror movie, though not quite in the standard ways we initially expect. There have been reports of some early audiences growing restless during long theological debates, having anticipated something more like, well, Saw. Bloody harm and macabre, possibly supernatural sights do arise here. But there is a lot of densely theoretical talk on the way, sometimes so much so that the suspense goes slack. Still, those dialogues are clever, breathed into life by actors who rise to that theatrical challenge.
Superficially cast against romcom type, Grant isn’t really doing anything all that different: We soon see how the right lighting and the wrong gleam in the eye can transform his toothy grin from bumbling charm to Hannibal Lecter-ish diabolism. He’s playing not so much a person as a construct, a mouthpiece for the authors’ verbiage. The supposedly green female characters, too, demonstrate implausibly refined argumentative and deductive reasoning when it’s convenient. But then Heretic doesn’t actually ask to be believed. It’s more of a provocation with allegorical elements. As such, it’s offbeat, accomplished, and surprising enough to be worthwhile for those who can handle something of a seminary final exam alongside their jump scares. It opens in theaters this Fri/8.
As does Small Things Like These, with a very different centerpiece performance from Cillian Murphy as a working-class husband and father in southwestern Ireland’s New Ross about 40 years ago. He delivers coal to locals, and among his customers is the convent where young women “in trouble” are housed until they give birth to children they’ll generally be forced to give up. It’s part of a network of “Magdalene institutions” that existed until 1998—a run ending not long after 155 unmarked graves were found on one convent’s grounds alone. Ostensibly charitable, they are now regarded with horror as secretive harbors for abuse towards “fallen women,” including crimes the Catholic Church still resists acknowledging. Peter Mullan’s 2002 drama The Magdalene Sisters (which itself followed a documentary expose) offered an excoriating depiction based on insider testimonies from surviving “fallen women.”
Tim Mielants’ new film is far less graphic, sticking the viewpoint of a concerned outsider: Murphy’s Bill discovers a terrified young woman cowering in the convent’s coal shed one day, confirming his fears that some terrible things occur behind its walls. But his business, his daughters’ education, and the town as a whole are much reliant on the Sisters’ favor. He can hardly play whistleblower without endangering all the above. Eventually he’s called in for a chat (and a bribe) from Emily Watson as a Mother Superior whose feigned warmth is as remote as the dark side of the moon. There are also flashbacks to Bill’s childhood, when only the liberality of a wealthy employer spared he and his mother the Magdalenes’ chilling charity.
Small Things is based on a recent novella by Clare Keegan, whose prior short story “Foster” became the Oscar-nominated feature The Quiet Girl. Though not quite as fine, this is another powerfully understated story from the perspective of a character made timid and withdrawn by harsh experience. And while it’s not the showy change of pace Oppenheimer afforded him, it provides a perfect opportunity for the soulfulness that has often marked Murphy’s most memorable roles. Bill’s compassion is the center of our universe here—religious belief, while taken for granted (everyone attends church), is never even discussed. Meanwhile, the potential corruption of religious institutions is something “everybody knows,” yet feels constrained from speaking out loud. Bay Area theaters were still TBA at presstime.
Adjacent to faith is trust, the thing that allows another crime to happen in Starring Jerry As Himself. Law Chen’s unclassifiable film—is it a documentary? a mockumentary?—sprang from the misfortune of producer Jonathan Hu’s father, a divorced retiree living in Florida. One day he was contacted by alleged mainland Chinese police who demanded his participation as an undercover agent to clear his own name of supposed money laundering affiliation, lest the long-ago Taiwanese immigrant face deportation. This was scary but also exciting, as Jerry found himself playing the lead in a real-world spy drama. He was told “You must not mention this confidential case to anyone.” Well of course not: Because anyone he’d tell about it would probably say “You’re being scammed.”
Which turns out to be exactly the case. This elaborate con drains him and his family of the savings from 40 years’ toil as an engineer. Forced back into the workplace as a Door Dash driver, he searches in vain for any means to identify the perps, let alone recover the funds (almost US$1 million!) he foolishly wire-transferred to them. This is depressing stuff, highlighting (like fictive recent Thelma) the targeting of seniors for billions of dollars via such confidence schemes each year.
But the film also offers Jerry some degree of compensation by letting him reenact the whole saga, with actors playing the people he dealt with (who themselves were playing phony roles), all staged in the manner of a true-crime TV procedural. The quasi-thriller packaging lends a giddy, ironical dimension to his travails, turning a case of cruel deception into something where he’s afforded at least an imaginative revenge. Starring Jerry As Himself is a unique cinematic hybrid that is a lot of fun, even as it illuminates the ever-rising threat of convincing, predatory disinformation—something that is very much relevant to our current election and general political scene. It’s available on major On Demand platforms as of this Fri/8.
