When the first trailer from A24 was released this summer to give a peak at what the co-writers of A Quiet Place were cooking up with Hugh Grant with Heretic, my first instinct was, “Well I can’t wait to see the chaos and protests this brings.”
Seeing as the protagonists are Mormon missionaries, it felt primed for religious scrutiny, with Christianity under attack.
And yes, Grant’s character is absolutely out to persuade these missionaries (played by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) that their God is imaginary and that he has found the one true religion. That is to say, Christianity is wrong and his view of the world is superior.
This really shouldn’t be a spoiler, but to say that Grant’s devlish antagonism as Mr. Reed is the one that meets the harshest scrutiny. Religion is not under attack here, but it does open a dialogue, as Thatcher discussed with The Pop Break at the world premiere at TIFF back in September.
“I don’t want to say that there’s any message, because I think it’s totally up to interpretation, and it’s based upon how you feel about the movie and what sticks out to you,” Thatcher said when pressed about the film placing religious women in a violent scenario. “I think that’s what’s so great about the movie. Like within the ending too, you can take it any way. I think even within talking about Mormonism, it’s like not taking any side. It’s not saying it’s bad or good. It’s just like saying it spewing some facts about religion, which I think is interesting, take that and then let it settle.”
Thatcher and East are both former Mormons but left the church to pursue their acting careers, and successfully so here in early career-best work.
It is a clear motivation from writer/director duo Bryan Woods and Scott Beck (co-writers of A Quiet Place) that they only wanted to use religion as a guiding hand to larger ideas.
“For a long time, Scott and I have talked about doing a movie about religion and investigating religion. Big life questions have always surrounded us, and cults were a fascination from an early age,” Woods said in a press release from A24.
“We thought it would be cool to make something in the vein of Inherit the Wind, where religion intersects with science, or Robert Zemeckis’ Contact, melding religion with a science-fiction story.”
Beck added that they both have close friends across different faiths including Mormonism, so the question became, what would happen if two female missionaries knocked on the wrong door?
“And how that could be a platform for a discussion of the major religions. How religion became a system of control also became very interesting to us,” Beck said.
That memo was read loud and clear by Grant who gives arguably his best performance of his illustrious career. He was born to play a villain, and this one in particular.
Speaking with him in Toronto, Grant had a wild grin talking about his role as Mr. Reed, an arrogant intellectual who “loves the attention” and “being an iconoclast and loves to burst bubbles of belief. It thrills him.” Grant’s performance feels completely at one with his character, reveling in the dark.
“We love messing around with dark stuff. I think we’re all deep down evil, tribal, satanic. It strikes a real chord in us. We’ve had enough pretending that we’re civilized.”
