Monday new releases: 2 December 2024

Heretic, Moana 2, Taki Rua Theatre - Breaking Barriers, Memory and There's Still Tomorrow are in cinemas and Joy is on Netflix

Editor’s note

I’m changing the format of these weekly new release summaries as I’ve been frustrated that they haven’t been as much fun to write (and presumably to read) as my old Capital Times columns from back in the day but it has taken me a while to work out why.

I’ve been giving every title its own image and, even though that makes for a strong visual presence, the fact that Substack can only showcase images at full width means that they interrupt the flow. It’s harder to make comparisons and connections.

And every time I start a new section after an image, I feel like that film deserves a full-blooded review which isn’t always the case (or at least I don’t always feel like it). So, fewer pictures should mean fewer but better words.

It’s here in the New Releases column but Heretic feels like it has been around for ages. Premiering at the Terror-Fi film festival a few weeks ago, this is a film that has been building a justifiable word-of-mouth reputation.

Two young women are in a small town to do missionary work for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. When we meet them, they are having a conversation on a park bench that doesn’t have very much to do with their proselytising purpose – the first hint that there may be more to these two than meets the eye.

As the winter rain pours down, they make it to a remote cottage where they are to meet one of their ‘leads’, a man named Mr Reed (Hugh Grant). They are not meant to be alone with a man but he insists that his wife will be joining them any minute – once she has completed baking a delicious blueberry pie – so they step inside.

Reed is at first quite affable, although he appears to already know a great deal about Mormonism, and the conversation becomes quite challenging, bordering on confrontational. Reed appears to be one of those ‘reply guy’ types who sees an opportunity to school these innocents in how he sees reality and religion.

The theological debate is much more robust than the one than in Freud’s Last Session but we soon learn that Reed’s methods are – to say the least – unsound. In the original Saw movie, the victims were forced to cut off a limb in order to survive. For a while it’s as if he’s challenging these women to cut off some part of their soul – their faith – but we eventually revert to gruesome horror type.

Expertly constructed, with a foundational idea that is scrupulously adhered to and a conclusion that manages to not take a side in their extended debate while also not selling itself out, Heretic is one of the most satisfying recent horrors. Grant is sensational and – if the Academy were ever to consider genre films for their awards – he should get some recognition for it. Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as the two young women are strong foils but it is Grant’s show.

On RNZ Nights on Friday night, I talked with Emile Donovan about the local documentary Taki Rua Theatre – Breaking Barriers and the new Disney animated musical Moana 2. I wanted to make the point that without Taki Rua’s four-decade commitment to advancing professional Māori theatre – including championing performing and writing in te reo – a film like Moana would be unthinkable (especially the reo Māori versions which are now being released simultaneously).