I got to go to an early screening of Heretic hosted by the reality TV Whitneys; me and my friend who got tickets for us wanted to go to the TikTok Whitney one, so we picked “Belief” over “Disbelief” (the RHOSLC Whitney is ex-Mormon). I was more excited about seeing the movie early and for free than seeing either of the Whitneys tbh, but she had us dance behind her for a TikTok so it was pretty funny.
Right off the bat, I was impressed by how both of the sister missionaries actually sounded like Mormon girls in conversation. From using goofy euphemisms to joking about their future husbands, the way they spoke genuinely reminded me of my friends growing up. This was something that felt off to me in Under the Banner of Heaven, which got certain phrases and the specific cadence that Mormons use when speaking a bit wrong.
Hugh Grant plays a super obnoxious and creepy investigator who tries to poke holes in LDS doctrine, along with Christianity and other religions. In doing this, he is also trying to trick the girls into going further into his huge, winding house, which is obviously a ploy to eventually trap them or kill them. Both girls see through this pretty quickly, but there’s no escape.
I appreciated the way the movie plays with stereotypes about Mormons: one of the girls is an East coast Mormon who is pretty grounded, and the other is a Utah Mormon girl from a large family. The Utah girl comes off as pretty naive at first, but as the movie goes on, you see that she can hold her own and see through this man’s lies pretty easily. Both of them argue their points well, and never concede to him. I also liked that they both maintained that their faith didn’t need scientific evidence to validate it. At one point, the girl from Utah cites a study about the effectiveness of prayer, and says that the results of the study concluded that it has no effect on the outcome of a situation at all. She talks about how that’s not the point; sometimes all you can do is pray, and people find comfort in that.
Alex Powelson 