The latest film releases include Heretic, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Christmas Eve in Miller's Point, and Small Things Like These. Weighing in are Monica Castillo, freelance film critic and senior film programmer at the Jacob Burns Film Center, and Shawn Edwards, an award-winning film critic for FOX-TV in Kansas City.
Heretic
From A24, two young Mormon missionaries visit a home and encounter Mr. Reed, a man (Hugh Grant) with a sinister agenda. This was written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, known for A Quiet Place.
Edwards: “It's about two young missionaries, they're invited into this home, they're both Mormon, they're trying to convert. But they're in bit of a sales slump, so that may be a bit of the reason why they're a little bit desperate to go to this house and talk to this man. … It's about to get dark, and as always in these films, the house is just a little creepy.
… Once they get inside the house is where the film really gets juicy. … But here's the deal: There's this theological debate that provides the film's most interesting and edgy moments, as these three verbally joust over religious beliefs and the origins of religion. Ding, ding, that's the Christmas tie-in because one of the religions [is] Christianity, which Christmas is named after. It's a stretch, but it works.
… There's some really good writing and acting happening here, when they're doing this debate over religion. … The problem is once you get past that, it becomes this basic, ‘don't go in the house because it's creepy and you gotta figure out how to get out’ — we've seen that before with movies like Barbarian and Don't Breathe. The credit is that once they do get to that part of the film, it's not a horror movie that relies on a lot of jump scares. … There's actually some genuine suspense, and it's Hugh Grant that provides a lot of it, because he's not just physically menacing, but he's also intellectually menacing. … I really wish the Academy would recognize more performances like this in horror films, because he's really, really good in the movie. But unfortunately, the second half [is] not nearly as strong as the first half.”
Castillo: “[Hugh Grant] is like a cat playing with the mice before pouncing on them. His performance is so delicious. … Also, I want to highlight Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as Sister Paxton and Sister Barnes here. They are also really fabulous because they're bringing different questions, and they're lobbing the questions back and forth with Hugh Grant's character. … It's a really great trio. The cast all brings different stuff to the table, and they're so fun to watch. … The production design here is also really fabulous. It becomes a fun house.”
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Based on a 1972 children’s book by Barbara Robinson, this follows the Herdman family (which includes six unruly siblings) as they take over a local Christmas pageant. Judy Greer plays the pageant director, who must figure out how to save the event, and in the process, reveals warm and fuzzy lessons.
Castillo: “It is a very family-friendly Christmas movie. Obviously, there's so many kids in the cast. … There’s an adult narrator of looking back at this time in her life, and explaining about the Herdmans and their involvement in this Christmas play, and how her poor mom, who steps in as the pageant director, has to handle all these very unruly children and deal with the town also [being in] an uproar about the fact that, oh, they're letting these wild children take over the play. And it ends up being very sweet, very kind. It's about what is the real spirit of Christmas? I think Judy Greer does a really great job.”
Edwards: “I was totally warm and fuzzy. I'm not a hater when it comes to Christmas. But this actually felt like an animated film, but it's actually live action because the setting is so intentionally Norman Rockwell with this wink at what a Make America Great Again city would be like, and all the adults are childlike, and the children are all adultlike. It's preachy light, and this movie is not really for kids, but it's not for adults either, but it falls in this ‘it's safe for the entire family’ category. But I did find it very unintentionally funny. … I actually really did love … Beatrice Schneider, who plays Imogene, she's like the heart and soul of the film, and provided most of the best moments.”
Christmas Eve in Miller's Point
A family comes together on December 24. The matriarch is in failing health, tensions rise, and one of the teens sneaks out of the house.
Edwards: “It is generally like every holiday movie, except this happens to be an Italian American family. It takes place on Long Island. So those are little touches that make it just slightly different. Here's the thing, though: There's so many characters and so many people. I actually wanted to pause the film and require them to wear name badges, because I could not keep track. … Their existence is really never explained. … You're forced to try to enjoy the experience of being with this family on Christmas Eve, but it's so distracting and so chaotic, I could barely follow along. … There really is no plot. The film just meanders the entire time. I was completely frustrated. I was confused. I felt like a hostage. … Although I did appreciate the fact that the filmmakers did pay spectacular attention to details. This film totally felt like the early 2000s, and the nostalgic vibe actually did get me giddy to spend time with my own family.”
Castillo: “I actually really, really enjoyed this one. And it did actually remind me a lot of those going to a big family gathering and not quite knowing why everyone's there or who's there. … It captures all of these little moments of the kids playing, of waiting for the presents, of dealing with the question of … ‘we're going to probably sell this house.’ And while the grown-ups are wringing their hands about … what does that mean and all the different changes, the kids are very unaware. That's not stuff that we were concerned with at that age. So we didn't know that our Christmases were never going to look the same way again. It did feel like a postcard from the past. It really put me in that setting, that mood. I love that all these different age demographics had their own adventures, or they're dealing with their own things.”
Small Things Like These
This is adapted from Claire Keegan’s award-winning novel about the real-life abuses at the Magdalene Laundries, which included involuntary confinement, forced labor, and forced adoptions.
Castillo: “I think this is a very quiet drama. The biggest action scene is between the Cillian Murphy, who plays … this coal provider for the area, and he starts investigating what's going on in the convent near him, and starts finding out about these abuses. And this was in the ‘80s in Ireland, but he has a really intense moment with Emily Watson, who plays Sister Mary, and she's guarding all of the secrets and trying to keep the status quo. You get to see how powerful this convent is in this area. … Because Cillian is such a great actor, we get to travel with … his character on that really intense, deep journey. This goes back to his past, and then he's obviously confronted with the current-day situation and all the possible things that might happen if he does stand up and do something. … It's a very powerful movie.”
Edwards: “This performance in Small Things like These is actually better than the performance in Oppenheimer, which [Cillian Murphy] just recently won an Oscar for. It's raw, it's effective, and he is literally at the top of his game.
As for the movie, it's very moody and dark, but for all the right reasons. It plods along with stretches of silence and lingering shots. All are very effective. … One of the biggest things that I noticed about the film that just really elevates it is … this lack of a traditional movie score, which completely gives this film an authentic feeling. I just thought it was an incredible film, and one of the best I've seen this year.”