Heretic And What's Making Us Happy
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In the claustrophobic thriller Heretic, two young Mormon missionaries knock on the door of a charming man played by Hugh Grant. At first, he seems genuinely interested in learning more and invites them in.

But it quickly becomes clear that this guy doesn't actually want to have a good faith discussion. In fact, he's hell-bent on testing the limits of their faith by turning religion into a game, and the missionaries are his pawns. I'm Ayesha Harris, and today we're talking about Heretic on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

Joining me today is Kristen Meinzer. She co-hosts The Daily Fail, a podcast that does comedic close readings of the tabloids. Hey, Kristen. Hey, Aisha. Great to be back. Great to have you. Also with us is Monica Castillo. She's a film critic and senior film programmer at the Jacob Burns Film Center. Hey, Monica. Hey. Happy to be back as well. Yes. It's so great to have you both back. And I'm very, very excited to talk to you about this movie that has...

A lot of things going on. Heretic stars Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, Mormon missionaries making their rounds of a Colorado suburb. Hugh Grant plays Mr. Reed, who invites them into his home and insists his wife is in the kitchen baking a pie. But after some time spent chatting with him in his living room, the sisters still have yet to meet Mr. Reed's supposed wife. And his expressed spiritual curiosity soon curdles into something...

more sinister. Is it blueberry pie? It is blueberry pie. I knew it, my favorite. Going back, can I ask, how did your father pass away? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have. Blueberry disease. Okay, that's wonderful. Blueberry disease. Who wouldn't want that?

He's obsessed with uncovering the one true religion and has diabolical plans in store for Barnes and Paxton. Heretic was written and directed by Scott Beck and Brian Woods, who happened to co-write the screenplay for the original A Quiet Place movie. So that might tell you a little bit about, you know, how this movie works. There's a lot of DNA from that movie in here, I think. And it's in theaters now. So.

So, Kristen, I want to start with you. What did you think of this film? I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I thought it was incredibly smart in that it often had me agreeing with our villain, especially early on in the movie. I'm like, yeah, dude's right here. He is.

Even as I was experiencing things through our protagonists and fearing things like our protagonists and knowing what it's like to be a young woman and not always knowing when to speak up and trying to be polite and just do the right thing. And those two things butting against each other really created an intellectually and psychologically complex experience that had me on the edge of my seat and just slumped.

so eager to see where was the movie going to take me next. I loved the whole experience of this movie. Ooh, yes. I have a lot of thoughts about agreeing with the villain because this is a very complicated drinking movie. But Monica, first I want to hear from you as well. What did you think? I similarly really loved this experience. It was so fun. I think Hugh Grant is embracing his character actor era and he seems to be having way more fun here than he was as an Oompa Loompa in Wonka. Yeah.

So at first, as you hear in the clip, he's, you know, sort of nice and kind of affable, but asking kind of awkward questions and being a little odd, but not like dangerously so. And he seems to relish having to crack that facade and actually reveal what his real intentions are. Yeah.

It's so delicious. And he comes out originally with like these gold rimmed glasses and this very cozy sweater. And he's offering them blueberry pie. And then it just goes from there. It's so much fun. And it's really fun because of Hugh Grant's performances. But I also think Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher as his two co-stars and the folks that he's constantly having to argue with, their dynamic is really impressive. And they sustain that suspense throughout the film. Yeah. Yeah.

This is really a three-hander almost entirely. There are other minor characters, but we spend most of our time with these three characters. And the first, I don't know, 25-ish minutes or so, we're just like in this room, in the living room.

of Mr. Reed. And the script is so tight. Like the dialogue, the back and forth, the slow reveals, the way it's paged. And again, this is kind of what I was hinting at with A Quiet Place where like sometimes like if you think too hard about A Quiet Place, I think something starts to like fall apart. But like in the moment,

The way that the screenwriters here are able to sort of like build upon all of these little moments that are revealed throughout, I think really makes this such an engrossing, thrilling part. I've seen some people who I assume have seen the movie or who maybe have seen like a preview of the movie who went into it thinking like, oh, I was hoping like there's a lot of talking, there's too much talking. And I was like, actually, this is exactly what I wanted. And for me, the last third of the film is where it kind of goes off the rails for me, where I was just like,

okay, I'm not sure if this movie knows exactly how to land or how to end things. And it kind of just becomes a typical sort of, not a slasher, but like a kind of final girl or like who's going to be the final girl type of film. I just wanted to stay even longer in those moments of combativeness and the building energy, the negative energy that Hugh Grant is giving in this role. And you mentioned the Oompa Loompa in Willy Wonka, but like, I think...

I feel like the seeds of this come from Paddington 2. His villain era. Yes. Yeah, his villain era. I love that movie, by the way. He's so good in Paddington 2. Yes, he is. But that's a comedic, not that this movie isn't funny, but that's a very different side of things. This is just like maniacal in ways that Paddington 2 would never aspire to be. And so I really, really...

just enjoyed that. Now, I'm curious, like what you all think about, you know, once these young women realize they're in danger. Kristen, can you speak a bit more to your you're talking about like agreeing with the villain? Because like, that's sort of when it starts to tip, I think of like, okay, where are sympathies lying here? What our beliefs are? Where are we aligning with this? And can you speak a little bit more about that sort of

Yeah.

What's the deal with the polygamy? How do we know that this is real? How does this part make sense? Because this seems a little bit nutty to me. And I think he's asking very valid questions that, frankly, when we're looking at religion, are not weird or evil to ask.

And then also when he's talking about the history of world religions and how there are a lot of overlaps here. And what is derivative of what? What's taking inspiration from what? What's just like a flat out photocopy of something else, you know? And he has some really great analogies and he's bringing in a lot of knowledge. Clearly, his character has done a lot of research on world religions and history. And so things he's bringing up, it's hard not to...

you know, not along with and be like, yeah, that's very true. Yeah. This is just a fact. But what's happening is he's bringing fact into the equation when the two missionaries are dealing with faith and where do faith and fact butt up against each other? And the other two forces really butting up against each other are

If you are anti-religion, why are you in some ways trying to become the be-all end-all in this movie, which is what the villain is doing? Which is essentially like you're kind of opposed to the idea of a be-all end-all, but you're kind of self-appointing yourself as one within this story. And I thought that was really interesting as well. Yeah. This is such a...

really interesting in-depth movie, it does feel at certain points that it does veer into sort of like pop theology and kind of condensing all of these big ideas into really easy, digestible metaphors. But you get that in order to move the story along. And I think it doesn't hamper the thrills at all. It really builds into them. But yeah, I think the equation it builds itself is eventually kind of writes itself into that corner. But yeah,

Because I think Hugh Grant delivers it so deliciously, we're able to follow him through wherever that may take us. Yeah, the pop theology. There's mentions of fast food places, corporations, Wendy's. Monopoly. Monopoly. Board games. Radiohead's Creep and the Holly song. And I think that's what's interesting to me about this film is the way that this character is sort of

written is as like the person who's like right a lot of times, but they hold their convictions so tightly that they have no room for any other sort of opinion or thought or anything that challenges themselves. And it kind of gives people who might be agnostic or atheist a bad

I think he's got like the worst representation of those type of people. But it is interesting to put this in the context of a horror movie, because when I think of so many horror movies or not even horror, but like films that question religion and

in ways that the Mr. Reed character is. Usually it's through someone who is pretending to actually be religious. And we're seeing the hypocrisy, I think, of something like Night of the Hunter and the Robert Mitchum character in that movie, where it's like, clearly people can hide behind the cloak or...

or whatever, and they can also be terrible people. There's, like, that kind of criticism of religion. And I think it's really interesting to see it being laid out in someone who, like, doesn't really pretend, like, for the first, like, five minutes of the movie, sure, but, like, then he lets down his guard and he is attacking this. And, I don't know, it challenged me, in a way, to think about, like,

you know, oh man, is this giving atheists and agnostics a bad name? Because it's like, it's not a spoiler to say he is a villain. Like if you've seen the trailer, which gives a lot away, I feel like, you know that Hugh Grant is going to be the evil, evil guy. But it does kind of show up, I think, in the end that even if the Mr. Reed character is,

clearly has his own sort of agenda. There's room for interpretation. Chris and I know we were talking beforehand about the ending a little bit, which we're not going to spoil, but you saw a little bit of, you know, gray in that ending, right? Yeah, absolutely. I felt that there was ambiguity in the end where, like,

Mm-hmm.

or choosing facts or choosing just to see what's in front of us and accept that it's all ambiguous and we don't necessarily know. And I really enjoyed that ending. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And Monica, I'm curious what your thoughts are on, you know, how this movie represents faith in that way. You know, I like to think that agnostics and atheists don't all have trap houses that they want to sincere people and have, you know, big heady discussions on a regular basis. Yeah.

Yeah, to that point, I do want to quickly just shout out the production designer, Philip Messina. It is a very well-designed trap house. There's also a moment where we see a miniature version of the house itself, which just shows, again, how just completely diabolical this Mr. Reed character is. I love the way the design functions to, once we're in, like, trying to escape mode, how it really functions to, like,

build that suspense in the best way possible. It felt like, oh man, like I really hope she's able to pull that rug closer to her, you know, like those little moments are just like so stressful in the best ways possible. I just really appreciated the way it was designed that way. And also just the way it's shot. Like it's just really good drama, like really good suspense, like catch me on the edge. Yeah. It's like being in a maze where there's no out.

Yes.

Being in a pastor's or a priest's quarters can, just because of the facts of life and the facts of history, that alone can be a very scary place for a young person to be, period. But then to add these other elements to it, I just thought was genius. Very well done. It's also a fun house that loses light with each level. As they get further into the house, it gets darker and darker and darker. There's like no windows. There's barely any windows. Yeah.

Towards the end, it's complete darkness. She has to use her cell phone light to guide herself through. Yeah, yeah. I mean, to your point, Kristen, of it looking sort of like a pastor's office, that's the thing, right? That's the thing that a lot of people will point out is especially if you identify as atheist or someone who is constantly in their railing against religion mode or not railing against it, but just like...

speaking about why it is, why you don't believe in it or you don't support it. That in itself is its own religion. Like anything can be its own religion. It doesn't even have to be actually related to deities or anything like that. Like,

cults, soul cycle. I don't know. They're all their own religion. Again, that kind of speaks to the ambiguity that we see towards the end of like, you know, we all believe what we believe, but there's a fine line between like choosing to not believe in something in some senses and then sometimes choosing to actually believe in something. The last thing I want to talk about, we've talked about Hugh Grant and

But I thought the performances here by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East are just really fantastic and really shows how, yes, they're both Mormon missionaries who ostensibly are at least at Mr. Reed's door for the same cause, but they have very different sort of ways of seeing the world and also come from different backgrounds. And I think it really highlighted that.

how each of them is an individual character. It was just so strong, I thought. Oh, I love their performances because they each brought such different dynamics. Even in that scene in the living room, you get to, you know, know them. You get to feel for both of their struggles as they're trying to deal with this stranger. I really love, like, the dynamic between the two of them and the two of them against Mr. Reed. Yeah, I second that. I thought their characters were so layered. Their performances were so layered because...

they are essentially each playing three different characters. They're playing the person who is getting to know a new coworker and you have to go out in the world with this coworker. And that's kind of a performance that we've all had to live at some point or another, right? And then they're living this other performance that's essentially them being salespeople as they are door to door. How do you sell your product? How do you sell your religion? That's its own performance as well.

And then what happens when the performance starts to fall away? What's underneath that? What is that person like when they're not being bubbly and frantic and excited? Underneath the bubbly and frantic, I think a lot of people would think, oh, that's an airhead. That's somebody who's not smart. Right.

a performance to sell a religion is not the same as the intricacies of what's in a person's heart or what they're observing. Being bubbly doesn't mean that you're not observing a lot. And we see that with at least one of the characters, I won't give it away. And sometimes being somebody who is more measured with their words and who seems very logical, that doesn't mean that they don't have faith in them and believe in something that's more divine. And I think that

the actors, Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher, do such a good job of embodying those things that might look like contradictions, but I think are just complexities of what it's like to be a human. And I loved them with each other. I loved them with Hugh Grant. They all were just fantastic. They were great. Yeah. Especially that opening scene. The opening scene where... Sitting on the park bench. Yes, on the park bench where the two women are talking about porn and just...

It's just great. It's hard to characterize. You just have to experience it yourself. Well, you should definitely tell us what you think about Heretic once you've had a chance to see it. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash bchh. And you can also find us on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com slash nprpopculture. That is boxed without an E. Don't ask me why. It just is. We'll have a link in our episode description. And up next, what's making us happy this week?

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Now it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week, what's making us happy. Monica, let's kick it off to you. All right. The Critics' Choice Documentary Awards are this Sunday, November 10th. And I've watched many documentaries in preparation for this. And one of the ones that I saw earlier this year that I'm still in love with months later is

is this beautiful documentary called Daughters by Natalie Ray and Angela Patton. It's available to stream on Netflix. It's the story of a few young girls whose fathers are incarcerated, but for one afternoon, they have the chance to reunite for a daughter and dad dance.

And it is so beautiful. It is so moving. If you're all right for a good cry, I highly, highly recommend it. It is just a really touching documentary. I've not been able to get it out of my head for many, many months. And when I saw it again to review it a few months ago, I cried again. It stuck with me. So for a really wonderful, surprising documentary, check out Daughters on Netflix. Monica, when I tell you, I bawled my eyes out when I watched it.

I was not okay the first watch. I was sobbing. Yeah. But really well done and just... So beautiful. Yeah, beautiful. So thank you for recommending that. So that's Daughters on Netflix. Kristen, what is making you happy? I am also recommending something from Netflix. Netflix recently re-released...

All of Dexter from Showtime. I had never seen it before. I've heard people talk about Dexter for a long time. And I have got to say, I...

I got sucked in so fast, and I loved it. The show is so funny. It's so clever. There's great storytelling. It's constantly surprising. For anyone who hasn't seen it, Michael C. Hall stars as someone who investigates crimes, but also murders bad guys who slip through the system. Vigilante. Yes, exactly. There are lots of twists and turns, but

what I really love about the show is actually the characters with Dexter in particular being the ultimate anti-hero. He's somebody who is constantly trying to come across as normal on the surface and

but he's not really a normal guy. And whenever there are cracks in his facade and whenever people are like, hold on, is something off about that? It's just such great tension and great humor. Again, that's Dexter on Netflix. It was originally on Showtime almost 20 years ago, but it still holds up. Yeah, I must confess, I have never been able to finish the show, but Michael C. Hall, amazing. Like he is such a great actor.

villain hero hero villain I guess we call them anti-heroes but like you know yes really great performance he's so good so that is Dexter now streaming on Netflix

So what's making me happy is one of my current favorite rappers right now, Dochi. I have been obsessed with her most recent mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal. She has just sort of emerged in the last few years as like one of the best lyricist, rappers, dexterity, anything you can think of in the game right now. And this new mixtape gives everything that I want in

It is introspective. She's got some bangers on here. I love the song Nissan Altima, which is just like...

the way she is able to wrap her tongue around what she's saying so quickly is just amazing. I think my favorite, though, is probably Denial is a River, which feels like very 90s, a little bit of Biggie, where she's like talking to her therapist alter ego. And she just gets really raw and really just like vulnerable about her insecurities and her flaws. I moved on, dropped a couple of songs, and then I went and got signed. Now it's 2021.

So if you're looking for, you know, a really sort of sweeping and charismatic and just fun and thoughtful album to listen to, definitely check out Doji's mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal. It is fun. You will not be disappointed.

That's what's making me happy this week. If you want links for what we recommended, plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter at npr.org slash pop culture newsletter. That brings us to the end of our show. Monica Castillo, Kristen Meinzer, thanks so much for being here. That was fun. This was so much fun. Should do this more often. Yes.

But hopefully we won't be like trapped in a crazy man's house. No, we won't. I'll serve blueberry pie though. Ooh, yes. Blueberry pie. That does sound good. This episode was produced by Hubsa Fathima and Mike Katzeb and edited by Jessica Reedy. And Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thanks so much for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris and we'll see you all next week.

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