The battle for second place at the domestic box office this past weekend (behind the fourth weekend of “Venom: The Last Dance”) was close, with two films hovering around the $11 million mark. Since neither film is a big hit, I’ve decided to toss them both a quick review.

“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”
Sadly, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” started off at a disadvantage with me from which it never quite recovered. It wasn’t the lack of flashiness or edginess or intensity. I’m perfectly fine with watching a family-friendly movie about a small-town Christmas pageant. It’s that I read the book by Barbara Robinson as a child, and the movie couldn’t measure up.

The story follows young Beth (Molly Belle Wright, though the movie is narrated by Lauren Graham as an adult Beth) as she sees her mother (Judy Greer) take over as director of the church’s high-pressure Christmas pageant. Things fall apart almost immediately when the six unruly Herdman kids – led by oldest sister Imogene (Beatrice Schneider) – insist on taking the six biggest roles in the play. Will the pageant be the disaster that most of the community is expecting? Or will Beth’s mother pull off a miracle and get a decent show out of the little misfits?

Even if I hadn’t read the book first, I could probably guess that the movie was heading in a direction where the Herdmans are reluctantly made better by the church and the church is reluctantly made better by the Herdmans. This is not a movie that takes many risks or makes many deviations from the source material. I was able to recall dialogue word-for-word from the book in some scenes. It’s not a “bad” movie, just an unambitious one. I must dismiss it with the line that adaptations dread: the book was better.

Grade: C
“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” is rated PG for thematic material and brief underage smoking. Its running time is 99 minutes.

“Heretic”

“Heretic” follows two young Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) as they pay a call on potential new convert Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant). The stranger is friendly, intelligent, and bubbly, essentially the Hugh Grant from all those romantic comedies. Except this isn’t a rom-com, it’s a horror movie. Unlike the other movie, I didn’t know much about this one going in, but I knew that once the young women were invited into Mr. Reed’s house, they wouldn’t be getting out anytime soon.

Not that Mr. Reed’s true colors are immediately apparent, even once the door has closed behind the visitors. He plays the gracious host, offering them warmth from the blizzard outside. He engages them in thoughtful religious discourse, occasionally veering into controversial topics as red flags gradually pop up all around him. I couldn’t pinpoint an exact moment where his villainy becomes official, but after several scenes of discussion and debate, the women find themselves trapped in his basement and at his mercy. Mr. Reed doesn’t want to kill them, he’s not that kind of villain. But he does want to do some converting of his own.

“Heretic” is a taut, slow-burn thriller that focuses more on mind games and suspense than action and violence. The three main performances are all excellent, with Grant at his career best and Thatcher and East immediately establishing themselves are future stars.

Unfortunately, the film loses steam in the third act, when the script gets greedy with how many twists it wants to pile on. The movie does so well for so long, that some early scenes are truly memorable (especially a lengthy board game analogy), and I do recommend it overall, but it just misses out on becoming a contemporary classic.

Grade: B-
“Heretic” is rated R for some bloody violence. Its running time is 111 minutes.

Contact Bob Garver at rrg251@nyu.edu.