Like the wolf from the fairytale, Mr Reed is all grandmotherly or rather, grandfatherly at first. He’s all bonhomie and goodwill, eyes crinkling with enthusiasm about encountering such young believers. When they insist on his wife being present, he says she’s baking a blueberry pie. When he goes to fetch her, they realise that the smell of the pie is from a blueberry-scented candle, they can’t open the front door and their coats too are gone. Mr Reed turns confrontational. He wants them to conform to his belief that each new religion is but a derivative of what came before. That, actually, there’s no one true religion. It’s not his arguments per se but his sinister ways, his shock tactics that convince them that they’re in fatal danger and might not escape with their lives intact…
The genius of the film lies in the casting. Hugh Grant is simply excellent as Mr Reed. At the start, we see the bumbling hero we have come to love in films like Notting Hill. His rushed speech, his sheepish grin that has become something of a trademark is present at full strength. The charisma works in the role’s favour. We’re delighted by the duplicity as Mr Reed’s true colours emerge. Sister Paxton and Sister Barnes are totally taken in by the charisma. It takes them a while to figure out the danger they’re in. And even later, they can’t understand how such a genial man can be so corrupt.
Sophie Thatcher is good as the street-smart Barnes. She is depicted as someone who doesn’t have her friend’s naivety or her enthusiasm for conversion. Though her belief in Christianity is strong. It’s this belief which makes her reject Reeds’s arguments. By contrast, Sister Paxton, played by Chloe East, is shown to be quite timid at first. But it’s she who later pokes holes at Reed’s charades, finding her inner strength when it mattered. Both Sophie and Chloe have played their parts with conviction. They come across as friends and their confrontational scenes with Hugh Grant are the film’s highlight. It’s a three-character film but the actors bounce off each other so well that you don’t feel the lack of other characters.
Watch the film for the superb acting on display by Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East and the various twists in the plot. Heretic doesn’t prove or disprove the importance of religion. Watch it for the plot and not for the intellectual discussion. Let’s leave theology to the experts.
