Heretic (2024)

The One True Religion (Stop Me If You've Heard This One)

or

A Reading from the Book of Iterations...(And Voltaire Never Said It)

Two Mormon missionaries, Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) are doing door-to-door evangelizing for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) on a not-too-weather-friendly day in Colorado, in Heretic, the new film from the team that gave you 65 (and wrote A Quiet Place). A storm's a-comin'. But, despite that, they take their bicycles for a requested "knock-knock" from an inquiry made by a Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) at his out-of-the-way house in the woods. After some wait as he comes to the door, he welcomes them eagerly, assuring them that his wife (who is very shy) is in the back, baking. Reassured that there will be a female present during their visitation, the two young women enter the house and accept the hospitality...even after he casually informs them that the walls and ceilings have metal in them (that's no problem, is it? Oh, good, good). He then takes their coats like a good host and goes behind a door to fetch the Mrs. It is then that the two women remember that they have the key to their bicycle lock in one of those coats. They're going to have to get it back if they intend to leave. With their suspicions heightened due to a couple of other things, they try to make a cellphone call...they can't (metal, you know) and they find that the front door cannot be opened...know matter how hard they try (and one has to admit, they don't try very hard as they never consider destruction of property...lawsuits, I guess). But, the long and the short of it is...they're trapped. And they can't leave except through the largess of Mr. Reed, who has disappeared deeper into the house. Interestingly, one thing they don't do...is pray.

Maybe they should have.

I don't like horror movies as a rule (despite the seeming obsession with them during Hallowe'en month). I do think they're valuable in instances, certainly in film. It's where a lot of young directors learn their craft in how to levitate people out of their seats in popcorn explosions (think Carnival of Souls or Night of the Living Dead). Even great directors will dabble in instances of horror. I just stay away from them as a rule because so many of them of late, especially during my formative movie-watching years, are (literally) hack-jobs. The slasher-movie craze left me cold after the first John Carpenter Halloween, and those series devolved into repetitive gore-fests with indestructible purveyors that kept coming back sequel after sequel after sequel (nothing new in the horror genre—how many Frankenstein, Dracula and Wolfman movies did Universal crank out?).But, the main reason I don't watch them of late is that so many are based on the element of cruelty...and casual cruelty where the moral compass has gone astray. Frankly, if I wanted to watch that, I could watch the news.

But, getting back to Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, clearly they are in a dangerous situation. They are stuck in a house with Mr. Reed—there's no sign of this "Mrs. Reed"—and even though he's curious and quite amiable (in that Hugh Grant "twitchy" way), it becomes quite clear that he doesn't need much evangelizing. He claims to be a theology student, and even has a well-annotated Book of Mormon on his shelf. And he explains that he's always wanted "a" religion in his life, but he couldn't settle for second-best (equating it with favorite fast-food franchises in a discussion with the Sisters), that he was on a life-long quest to find The One True Religion to devote to. He peppers them with questions about LDS and their beliefs and how their life-experiences fit into a belief system that's a bit late "in the game" and had its share of waffling on tenets.

But, the discussion becomes deeper the deeper they get into the house. By this time, the ruse that there's a "Mrs. Reed" is way-past accepting, just as Reed is way-past accepting that Sisters B and P (as he calls them) are not above being dishonest in their words as well. There's no cellphone call they feign accepting—cell service doesn't work—and they can't call out (even though an elder (Topher Grace) knows that they're out on a call and to whom) and the front door is on a timer and it won't unlock until the morning. He tells them they can leave at any time...but they have to go through the back door. And there are two doors in the room: which of them goes to the back door he's not saying.

But, first he has a little speech (of course he does). And it's all about "iterations" and how the Big Three Religions can be compared to the game of Monopoly or (more towards the Sister's younger spheres of culture) the case of a song that might be "inspired" by earlier songs. The Big Three Religions have as their basis previous theologies, and Protestantism, Calvinism, LDS, Scientology (what have you) are all further iterations of The Big Three. It's as if the latest prophet should start his religion with "Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before." But, they don't...because they have "the one true religion." And Reed isn't interested in copies.

But, there's the matter of those two doors—both lead to dark stairs leading downwards—neither of them seeming too appealing, and Mr. Reed has already demonstrated that he's not the most honest of people, and the Sisters, if they want to leave the house (he says), must choose between them if they do want to leave (and they truly do). And he ups the ante by marking them "Belief" or "Disbelief". Which of the doors will they choose?

But, before you think this will be an examination of Faith and its repercussions, one should recall that it's a horror film. A rather icky, grisly one, and one that takes a step or two back from the post-feminism horrors like Silence of the Lambs or even, say, Ready Or Not, and for all the intriguing aspects of the theological arguments, the film slides relentlessly downhill once those doors are opened. And however much some of the talking brings up some salient points (and a couple of attribution gaffs) it never builds on them or resonates through them, but turns into a simple gore-fest.

 

Slate Magazine calls Heretic "mansplaining as horror," which is a good line (and to be expected as the film is about religion where, outside of the world of Dune, women are tolerated, not elevated), but, unfortunately, that mansplaining is the best part of the movie (a lot of it due to Hugh Grant's performance, building on past roles as "man-monsters"). Once we start entering the house's sub-floor the movie never rises to the same level as those opening 45 minutes. The writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods make movies that have wonderful first acts—great concepts that can "sell" a movie to studios—but they fall apart and start regurgitating on cruise-control for the remainder of the film. There're no epiphanies or revelations at the end.* Nothing's earned. They just stop. 

But, movies should be more than their elevator pitches. I have faith that someday Beck and Woods will get that. But, for now, they're stuck in the basement.

* The film has two good lines of dialogue at the end, but to show you what a big blood-soaked nothing burger the movie becomes, it could have been said an hour earlier and it would have made as much of an impact then as in its current place.

Wonka

Come With Me/And You'll Be/in a World of Re-Imagination

or

Chocolopalypse Now
 

Did they need to make another "Willy Wonka" movie? Not really. The original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was such a fine confection, a combination of elements so slick and shabby that it far exceeded the sum of its parts. It hit the brain like dopamine, the same reaction as when chocolate melts on your tongue.

 

And like chocolate, it was a surprise that it was as good as it was, given its meager budget and its less-than-pure beginnings (Originally, envisioned as a marketing tool for a new line of candy, it pretty much had to stand on its own when Quaker Oats, the company making the stuff, had production problems and scrapped the "Wonka" candy line). The book's author, Roald Dahl, is credited with the screenplay, but he didn't really write it—his script was shelved—and David Seltzer wrote the egg-creamy Gene Wilder version. He and director Mel Stuart turned it into a perennial, one of "those" movies—the ones like The Wizard of Oz or The Black Stallion—that you have to show your kids knowing that those movie-memories will be golden, enriching and last a lifetime. Quaker Oats' loss was our gain.

So, there didn't need to be another Willy Wonka movie. In fact, the only reason to make another Willy Wonka movie...is that Wonka is so darned good.

 

A prequel of sorts to the 1970 film, it follows young Wonka (played by a winsome Timothée Chalamet), new immigrant from wherever, sailing into England (I think, hard to say), full of hopes and dreams, visions of chocolate trifles dancing in his entrepreneurial head. He has a vision, this guy, inspired by his mother (Sally Hawkins, always welcome) of making the sweetest chocolate this side of Loompaland (from which he has absconded their out-sized cacao beans) and with the magical thinking that if he can just establish his choco-shop, it will fulfill his late mother's promise that she would be at his side at the opening to divulge her secret of chocolate-making.

Illiterate, and in shabby clothes with only 20 shillings in his threadbare pocket, he ends up sleeping on a bench, when he is offered accommodations at the rooms of Scrubbit (Olivia Colman) and Bleacher (Tom Davis), where the rent is only 1 shilling to be paid by end of next day. Wonka is sure he can sell enough chocolates to pay oodles more, but before he can sign the contract, he is warned by the waif Noodle (Calah Lane) to "read the fine print" But, he can't read, so he signs—not that he would have read the slogan on the wall "Come For a Night, Stay For a Lifetime" if he could.

After a night of making confections, he goes out into the street and with just his brio (and a song), he sells his wares, only to confronted by "The Chocolate Cartel" of Slugworth (Paterson Joseph—he's great!), Prodnose (Matt Lucas), and Fickelgruber (Mathew Baynton) that his chocolates are "...weird." And is told by the Chief of the Police (Keegan-Michael Key) that he cannot sell his chocolates without a shop and without a shop he cannot sell chocolates, so he must cease and desist.

And if that weren't enough of a bad day, he is informed by Scrubbit and Bleacher that he has incurred a debt of 10,000 shillings from his stay and the fine print, and must work it off in their considerable laundry service, alongside past tenants Abacus Crunch (Jim Carter), Piper Benz (Natasha Rothwell), Larry Chucklesworth (Rich Fulcher), Lottie Bell (Rakhee Thakrar), and Noodle. Only two days in the city and Wonka is Catch-22'd into no work, no income and no hope (not to mention that when he's able to make chocolate, it is being stolen by someone nefarious that he hasn't been able to catch yet).

What's a Wonka to do?

Well, it's a musical-comedy based on a children's book, so, obviously he has a lot to do. Nobody working on Wonka is doing something world-shaking or revolutionary.

 

Other than making a darned good movie.

Oh, sure it takes about 20 minutes and a so-so song before it finds it's legs, but right about the time Wonka mentions that one of his chocolates is "salted with the bittersweet tears of a Russian clown" I was fully on-board and the film did not disappoint. In fact, it made this jaded old film-writer laugh out loud several times.

Credit must go to director/co-writer Paul King, who may be something of a magician himself. With the two Paddington Bear movies under his belt, he seems to have developed the recipe for making a charming entertainment that appeals to both kids and adults with equal rapture. There was a funny through-line in last year's The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, where Nic Cage, in attempting to bond with his millionaire benefactor asks him what his third favorite movie is and the response to his shock is Paddington 2. The Cage character is aghast, but after watching it, is moved to tears and cannot help but agree. I haven't seen the Paddingtons. On the strength of Wonka, they are now on my ever-expanding list of "must-sees."

The cast is uniformly superb. Doubts about Chalamet being a suitable Willy Wonka should be put to rest given the evidence (the reason Chalamet is so ubiquitous in movies these days is that the man's extraordinarily talented). If he's not quite Gene Wilder's sly loony Wonka, consider that this is a prequel when the character is just getting started and hasn't yet come to the point where the pressure of industrial food manufacturing will throw his gears off-slot. If such a movie is made, King might not be the best fit for it, maybe someone a bit more perverse would be in order.

But, for now, for this movie, King has done a masterful job, even finding lovely roles for such British institutions as Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Grant, who is cast as a perpetually vexing Oompa Loompa, named "Lofty," and does it with such an air of haughty superiority (and no Grant dithering) that he very nearly walks away with the picture. No small feat.

So, if one is putting off going to this one because of rumors on the cranky internet, turn it off and go. Go immediately. And take a child. Get permission, of course.
 

Where most movies skewing towards a younger audience are as disappointing as biting a hollow chocolate Easter bunny, this one is pleasingly solid.

 

Enjoy.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

Cry U.N.C.L.E.! and Let Slip the Dogs of Summer!
or
The Better Luck Next Time Affair

Those of us "of an age" remember the 1960's (if what we did in the 70's and 80's didn't completely wipe it out) as a time burgeoning from eclectic influences in pop culture. Colors were bold, music had influences from around the world (mostly British, French, Italian, and Spanish with a smattering of Appalachian folk), literature disobeyed rules and fashion skimped on material and was mightily chromatic. Things began to go "pop" and the notion of "long-hair music" forever changed. In the era of the Beatles and Bond, things began to be taken less seriously until it fell into "camp." On TV, the transition went from black-and-white into "living color" and the shows went from filmed radio plays to bigger-budgeted escapism.  

One of those was an hour long spy-mock-drama that endeavored to bring a James Bond type of thriller to the small screen (Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, contributed the name of its hero-agent) with a touch of intercontinentalism (on a small budget) and a running nod towards Hitchcock. "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." (which stood for The United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.*) premiered on the NBC TV network in September of 1964 (a few months shy of the movie premiere of Goldfinger) and featured Robert Vaughn as American agent Napoleon Solo (Fleming's contribution) and David McCallum as Russian agent Ilya Kuryakin. Leo G. Carroll played their boss, Alexander Waverly (he played a similar head of a spy agency in Hitchcock's North By Northwest). The plots generally revolved a plot by the criminal organization T.H.R.U.S.H.** which Solo and Kuryakin would quell with the assist of an innocent civilian (usually that week's lead guest star) who would prove invaluable and then return to their ordinary lives never to be heard from again. The show ran for 4 seasons on NBC and frequently bits of episodes were joined together to form theatrical films which were most prominently shown in foreign markets. There was a spin-off: "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E." starring Stephanie Powers (as agent April Dancer—another Fleming name) and Noel Harrison, but it lasted one season.

That was then; this is now.  An "UNCLE" film has been in development for years with various enticing elements attached, but when the chips fell, Guy Ritchie was in the director chair, and re-united with his Sherlock Holmes co-screenwriter Lionel Wigram to make an updated version of the film. Just as with that film, the two tinker with expectations while trying to remain somewhat true to the spirit of the thing.

So, how is it?  Pretty luke-warm for a Cold War film.  It is an origin story of sorts, set in 1963 with a threat of such high seriousness and nuclear repercussions that the CIA and KGB must unite to try and stop it. The recruits are Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill—who doesn't have Vaughn's lizard-like charm, but replaces it with a winsome mean streak) and Ilya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer, just fine, thank you), just like the series. But not like the series. Solo has a history of theft, smuggling and black marketeering from his days at the end of World War II (although Solo looks a bit young to have been serving at the time) and Kuryakin is humorless, abnormally strong (he yanks the boot off a car at one point in the film) and is reported to be slightly psychotic from childhood traumas. Well, that's no fun, but it does set up the sort of bitchy, bickering banter that the Holmes films are known for, some of which works and some of which feels like filler.

The collaboration does not start off well.

The matter at hand is an Italian industrialist couple, the Vinciguerras's (Luca Calvani, Elizabeth Debicki) with ties to former Nazis who—for whatever reason—are trying to develop a nuclear bomb. Not nice. The reason Solo and Kuryakin are collaborating is that both agents were trying to get their hands on one Gabby Teller (Alicia Vikander), whose father is working with the Vinciguerra's to develop the bomb. Solo manages to smuggle her out of East Berlin, much to the consternation of Kuryakin, who is trying to prevent it. This forces the two sides to cooperate, although both agents are privately advised to steal the back-ups of the bomb plans even if they have to kill the other to do so. Not the most viable of partnerships.

And if their rivalry doesn't put the kibosh on the operation, Gabby's loose cannonry certainly might. She trusts Solo a bit (he did, after all, get her out of East Berlin), Kuryakin, not at all—and he's the one tasked with posing as her fiancé in the hopes that she can contact her long-missing Daddy working for the enemy. It is the flimsiest of spy-schemes but it beats a high-stakes poker game or most of the other UNCLE strategies on the TV show. While Solo turns on the charming roguishness with the Vinciguerra's (particularly the Mrs.)...

...Kuryakin and Teller try to pose as a happy couple in love, something the Russian has to be constantly coached at by both Solo and Teller, as he is not very good at staying in character. He also has a nasty habit of losing his temper and using his martial arts training, even though he's supposed to be posing as an architect. Considering he's being watched constantly by Vinceguerrian hoods, you would think he'd have a little more control over himself. How long has Kuryakin been an undercover agent, anyway? 

The character arcs of the two agents are rather obvious—they start out as the best of enemies and after some softening up, whether by feminine charm or by Nazi-inspired torture, they become the worst of friends. Each has more than enough opportunity to irritate the other—they both manage to "bug" the other metaphorically and technologically—but stray instances of rescuing the other, even if deliberately delayed after initial second thoughts, makes them realize that they have each others' backs, even if secretly imagining a target over-layed there. It's a wonder with all the bickering they get any work done and it becomes apparent fairly early on who the prime movers of the opposite camps are.

For the best thing about The Man From U.C.L.E. is, contrarily, The Women: Vikander's Gabby Teller is presented as an innocent—the Hitchcock innocent in over their head (which was a much used trope of the original TV series)—but she quickly displays a better understanding of her role than the uptight Kuryakin does, and her adaptability and her quick judgment in rolling with changes in strategy makes her a better insurgent than Solo, who always manages to stick out like a superbly tailored sore thumb. And the actress has more fun with her role than either of the two leads, frequently being more engaging and entertaining—there's a lovely moment where she boogies to vintage rock in the background while Kuryakin tries to concentrate on a focusing chess game despite the irritation of his lively room-mate.

Then there's the villainess, played by Debicki. Tightly coiffed and haute coutured to maximum advantage, she resembles nothing so much as a blonde Audrey Hepburn morphed into a cutthroat assassin. She's gorgeous, but that's not the main reason you wouldn't want to turn your back on her, and Debicki invisibly sashays between cooing hostess and sociopathic evil without breaking stride. Her screen-time is not much, but she manages to be always one step ahead of her co-players, both in dominating a scene and the story.  The actor playing her husband barely registers—it's clear she's in charge even if she wouldn't be caught dead wearing a pant-suit.

That the women in U.N.C.L.E. are far more interesting that the titular males seems a little surprising and a bit vexing—maybe we've seen the back-biting, bitching male co-workers too much in Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes" movies. And like those, the movie has an over-abundance of style—the period details are fun and distracting, the fashion is really well-done—if only the central roles were as nicely tailored—and the soundtrack is a bold blend of brash Italian stylings with glimmers of other pop fads from the 60's—there's even a barely discernible nod to Jerry Goldsmith's theme from the TV show. It's the one hint of subtlety to the score which is refreshingly free from being the musical paste that has become more of the norm these days and is more of an accompaniment than trying to "blend."

But, there should be more to a movie than some good elements. However fresh some things are, it can not keep the whole thing from feeling a little stale. One wishes for a little more fun, a bit more wink, which, even in its earliest days, the series managed to pull off.  

Open Channel D (or, at Best, C-)

Mr. Waverly (Hugh Grant) gets the very predictable last word.

* The series had a nice joke at the end of the weekly credits: "We wish to thank the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement without whose assistance this program would not be possible."

** It was never really established what the "THRUSH" acronym stood for but it has been widely accepted as The Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity—a name that probably wouldn't qualify it for 501(c)(3) status.