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If you want critical movie acclaim, there’s a reliable formula: tell a love story backward.

Start in the wreckage. Someone has cheated. Someone has checked out. The husband drinks too much, the wife works too much, and there’s a dead-eyed distance until one of them says something like, “I don’t think I’m in love anymore.”

Then cut to an earlier version of the same couple—young, magnetic, and unmistakably “in love.” They have a meet-cute, an immediate connection, a spontaneous slow dance. Cue the sweeping wedding montage, the surprise pregnancy, the tiny apartment made romantic with twinkle lights. We’re asked to believe this is what good married love is: intensity, spontaneity, romance.

Cut forward again, and we get the discovery, the confession, the paperwork, the sad soundtrack. The same question hangs over every scene, “How did we get from there to here?”

Outside the prestige marriage-in-freefall genre, the state of marriage on screen isn’t exactly hopeful. In early 2025, Millers in Marriage arrived as a relationship drama about three adult siblings orbiting dissatisfaction, infidelity, and divorce-adjacent choices. Later that year, Splitsville took the modern “maybe monogamy is the problem” premise and detonated it into chaos: a dissolving marriage collides with a supposedly successful open relationship, and it works out for no one. 

Isn’t it time for a new marriage story?

The thing about the marriage-falling-apart stories is that they’re often very good. The best of them are relatable in some small way to even the happiest of married couples. They treat the couple with a thoughtfulness and nuance that’s usually left out of the lighthearted rom-com genre. 

Marriage isn’t easy, and storytellers shouldn’t pretend it is. But something has gone very wrong when the most talented writers, directors, and actors are exclusively drawn to the most melancholic stories, while stories about strong and happy marriages and families are left to the realm of low-budget holiday made-for-TV movies.  Hollywood has gotten very good at depicting marital conflict and very bad at depicting marital repair. This repair is so often possible when marriage is viewed as a sacred covenant rather than a means of amusement and pleasure, something to be discarded when it ceases to serve that purpose.’

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Not long ago, a mainstream network drama gave viewers a marriage with real stress but no contempt and conflict without the constant threat of betrayal. Friday Night Lights wasn’t a story about perfect people. It was a story about people under pressure—career pressure, parenting pressure, community pressure—and a marriage that didn’t evaporate the moment it stopped feeling effortless.

Why does it matter if healthy marriages are portrayed on screen? It matters because we are formed by the stories we binge, quote, and internalize. Young people, who increasingly spend their waking hours on screens, have decreasing interest in marriage and family. This is great cause for concern, especially for people of faith who believe that marriage and family are central to God’s plan. Proverbs teaches, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Who are we shaping ourselves and our children to be if so much of our media sows cynicism and discontent about marriage? 

My favorite movie about love—a true bright spot for marriage in movies—is Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally…. What makes it quietly profound isn’t only the central story of two friends falling in love. It’s the way the film is stitched together with documentary-style interviews of elderly couples telling the stories of how they met.

The couples on screen are actors. But the stories are drawn from interviews gathered during the writing process—real people’s memories shaped into monologues, then performed with ordinary tenderness. The movie opens with a sweet elderly couple sitting on a couch, with the husband relaying this story: 

I was sitting with my friend Arthur Kornblum, in a restaurant … And this beautiful girl walked in and I turned to Arthur, and I said Arthur, you see that girl? I’m going to marry her. And two weeks later we were married. And it’s over fifty years later and we are still married.

Later in the movie, another husband shares:

A man came to me and say, “I find a nice girl for you. She lives in the next village, and she is ready for marriage.” We were not supposed to meet until the wedding. But I wanted to make sure. So I sneak into her village, hid behind a tree, watch her washing the clothes. I think if I don’t like the way she looks, I don’t marry her. But she look really nice to me. So I say okay to the man. We get married. We married for 55 years.

These vignettes are not “prestige tragedy.” They don’t build toward an award-worthy implosion. They’re small and human, sometimes funny, and improbable. They’re often surprisingly plain. 

Perhaps we are beginning to see a correction. Chloé Zhao, one of the best working directors today, crafts one of the year’s best movies around the theme of marriage repair and reconciliation in her Oscar-nominated film “Hamnet.” Other Best Picture-nominated films, such as “Train Dreams” and “Sinners” also show marriages strained and repaired. These films are showing a better, more interesting way forward. We have plenty of conflict, realism, and cynicism. What we need is repair.

If you can only imagine love as a feeling you either have or don’t, then the moment the feeling dips, the story is basically over. But if love is also a practice—something you learn, fail at, return to, choose over and over again, and grow into—then marriage doesn’t have to be filmed as either a fairy tale or a tragedy.

Which brings me back to Valentine’s Day. We need better marriage stories that are honest about difficulty and honest about endurance: depictions of husbands and wives who don’t merely “stay together” but learn how to turn back toward each other again and again until the ordinary becomes, in its own way, extraordinary.

The post A New Marriage Story appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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2024 was one of the best years in recent memory for family films. 2025 didn’t have as much to offer, but there were certainly plenty of great films to watch as a family—you just had to know where to look. Many of the best were under the radar or had small releases, which means many families still have the opportunity to experience them together. 

A few films didn’t quite make the cut, but are worth mentioning: Zootopia 2 — more beautiful but less creative and morally sound than Zootopia 1, Unbreakable Boy — a heartwarming based-on-a-true-story film that goes a bit too sappy, and The Colors Within — a beautiful piece of visual poetry with a metaphor a bit too on the nose.

But here, in my opinion, are the ten best movies of the year and where to find them.

9 & 10. ‘Minecraft’ & ‘Dog Man’

I wanted to include both films here to round out the list. Neither is particularly memorable, and certainly they aren’t trying to be important. But they do prove that silliness is its own kind of virtue and that you can genuinely entertain without trying to import ideology to children. Sometimes something that can make you giggle and cheer for 90 minutes is precisely good enough. 

How to watch Minecraft: Streaming on HBO Max 

How to watch Dog Man: Streaming on Netflix

8. ‘Paddington in Peru’

Paddington the bear embodies kindness, manners, and goodness. So whether you’re the grown-up laughing at the misadventures of the adorable cub, or a kid learning from his example, the franchise is a gold mine for families. The latest adventure doesn’t quite reach the peaks of the previous two installments, but the delightful additions of Olivia Colman and Antonio Banderas keep the film a lively adventure.

How to watch: Streaming on Netflix

7. ‘The Legend of Ochi’

The Legend of Ochi invites kids and adults into a hand-crafted fairy tale where courage looks like listening to the creatures everyone else is afraid of. With the old-school puppetry and throwback plot, the film feels like an 80s adventure. There is some distrust of authority that comes with the genre, but overall, the film gently nudges viewers toward curiosity, compassion, and making the big, hard choices.

How to watch: Streaming on HBO Max

6. ‘KPop Demon Hunters’

The surprise hit of 2025 KPop Demon Hunters has proven its entertainment chops for kids. This is not a film that can stand on its own; there are a few mixed moral messages about identity formation and shame that you’ll want to talk through with kids. But the thrust of the film about fighting real evil and self-sacrifice as a weighty moral good is worth cheering for. And it even has some meaningful things to say about redemptive vs. toxic empathy, an important counter-cultural lesson. 

How to watch: Streaming on Netflix

5. ‘In Your Dreams’ 

In Your Dreams uses its wild, anything-can-happen dream world to tell a surprisingly grounded story about kids learning they can’t wish their family into perfection. The movie keeps turning the fun imagery and gags back toward a deeper lesson about choosing real, imperfect love over fantasy and control. The villain isn’t just a monster but the temptation to live in a world where nothing is hard and no one ever disappoints you, and the film clearly labels that as a trap rather than a goal. This is a rare contemporary film about divorce that, in the end, rejects divorce and pursues forgiveness and hard work instead. 

How to watch: Streaming on Netflix

4. ‘The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie’

The first fully hand-drawn Looney Tunes feature gives Daffy and Porky a world-saving alien-invasion plot that stays gloriously zany while quietly celebrating friendship and responsibility. Amid the bubblegum-factory chaos and a few genuinely creepy B-movie-style moments, the heart of the story is two screw-ups learning to have each other’s backs and to use their oddball gifts for something bigger than themselves. For families who miss old-school cartoons that are silly first and never push the boundaries, this is a blast.

How to watch: Streaming on HBO Max

3. ‘Ne Zha 2’

Ne Zha 2 takes all its record-breaking hype and actually delivers a mythic family story about courage, costly love, and refusing to treat whole peoples as disposable. With Ne Zha and his dragon friend Ao Bing literally sharing one fragile body, the movie keeps turning its huge battles and wild visuals back toward loyalty, repentance, and parents who are willing to suffer rather than abandon their son. It is intense and unapologetically rooted in Chinese mythology, but for families willing to go big and talk afterward, this is one of the richest animated adventures of the year. 

How to watch: Streaming on HBO Max

2. ‘Arco’

Arco begins with a rainbow-suited boy falling out of a peaceful far future into a battered 2075, and turns that simple sci-fi hook into a quietly moving story about friendship, responsibility, and the kind of world we are handing to our children. Iris and her robot caretaker Mikki take this stranger in and, as they race to send him home, the film keeps tying its gorgeous future-shock imagery back to small acts of hospitality, courage, and care for a damaged Earth instead of despair or blame. It is hopeful without being naïve, warning kids about what might come while insisting that love of neighbor and creation can still bend the story in a better direction.

How to watch: Limited Release in Theaters

1. ‘Little Amélie or the Character of Rain’

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain quietly follows a little girl in 1960s Japan as she slowly wakes up to the world around her. We see everything from her small point of view as she tastes new foods, plays by the water, and tries to make sense of big things like war, loss, and God with the help of the adults who love her. (The answers are grounded in Japanese spiritualism, not Christian theology.) The film is gentle, slow, and often very funny in tiny ways, but it treats a young child’s heart and questions with real respect, showing how family love and simple daily joys can teach humility and gratitude. It is one of the year’s rare animated films that truly honors childhood as a sacred season rather than a marketing demographic, which is why it tops this year’s list.

How to watch: Limited Release in Theaters

The post The Best Family Movies of 2025 Came From the Margins, Not the Mainstream appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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During the summer of 2025, we’ve seen a notable shift in the narrative style of superhero films. 

Since 2002, superhero films have centered on origin stories—plots that trace heroes from ordinary individuals to extraordinary agents of justice and good. But James Gunn’s rebooted film Superman and the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s introduction of the Fantastic Four both notably start in the middle of their characters’ stories. These characters are fully formed, and their backstories are assumed and deemphasized. 

This shift reflects more than just storytelling evolution; rather, it reflects a deeper cultural transformation in how we are responding to the crises around us, how we conceive of agency, and how we imagine heroism.

In the same way the origin story rose as a response to our cultural processing of 9/11, this shift away from them reflects the breakdown of shared national narratives and a desperate search for safety in an age of uncertainty. 

Pre-9/11: Action Without Introspection

Before the events of September 11, 2001, American action cinema largely operated within a confident moral framework. The genre thrived on spectacle, propulsion, and clarity, rather than introspection or psychological depth. Heroes were rarely burdened with complexity; they were good simply because they were good. Audiences accepted this simplicity not as a narrative deficiency, but as a feature of the genre’s moral architecture. The focus was on what the hero would do, not why they felt compelled to do it.

Similarly, in Independence Day (1996), Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith) is a hotshot fighter pilot who defends the planet from extraterrestrial annihilation. The film offers no biographical backstory to explain Hiller’s courage; it simply presents him as the kind of American who rises to meet the moment. 

In addition, Top Gun (1986), with its swaggering fighter jocks and Cold War subtext, gives us Maverick (Tom Cruise), a thrill-seeking pilot who competes to be the best. Top Gun is notable because it does nod to the mysterious death of Maverick’s father, but it does so without mining the event for psychological motivation. It presents it not as formative for our character, but as part of his formed character. We never ask what made Maverick crave speed. 

These characters are fully formed at their introductions. There is no demand for narrative justification or psychological realism.

Even in the emerging superhero genre of the era—where one might expect more elaborate treatments of identity and origin, in line with their comic book form—this tendency persisted. The villain was often the one with a backstory, not the hero. Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) gives Jack Nicholson’s Joker an origin as a mob enforcer named Jack Napier, whose disfigurement and descent into madness offer a form of explanation for his violence. Batman, in contrast, is defined primarily through action and mystique. In X-Men (2000), the audience is given a haunting origin for Magneto, who, as a child, survives Auschwitz and emerges with a militant view of mutant survival. The heroes—Cyclops, Storm, Jean Grey—are just there. Even Wolverine, the film’s breakout antihero, is more defined by his amnesia than a deeply explored past.

In places where we do see origin-like elements, they are treated as flashbacks after which we catch up with our heroes mid-story. We see this approach in the brief flashback to the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents in the 1989 film. Perhaps the clearest example of this narrative economy can be found in Superman: The Movie (1978). The film opens with the destruction of Krypton and young Kal-El’s escape to Earth. But these sequences are delivered in brisk montage and are more interested in Zod, the villain. We quickly skip ahead to a point where Superman is already the embodiment of American virtue.

Post-9/11: Origins as Ontology

In the years following 9/11, that changed. As American society absorbed the trauma of watching its symbols of power collapse live on television, it entered what we might call a hermeneutic age—an era defined by interpretation, inquiry, and a pervasive sense that nothing can be taken at face value. The cultural response was a desperate turn toward explanation, particularly in cinema.

The turn toward psychological realism and its expression—the origin story, arguably began with Spider-Man (2002). Released less than a year after 9/11, Sam Raimi’s film offered a superhero origin story steeped in trauma, guilt, and reluctant responsibility. Peter Parker isn’t simply bitten by a radioactive spider; he wrestles with the moral implications of power, the weight of his uncle’s death, and the crushing burden of his double life. The story insists on the interiority of its hero. And for the first time, where our superhero came from wasn’t a footnote; it was the story itself.

Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005) exemplifies this shift. Rather than drop us into the action, the film spends nearly an hour exploring Bruce Wayne’s childhood fears, the trauma of losing his parents, and his training with the League of Shadows. The film doesn’t hint at his backstory; it is his backstory. Batman becomes not merely a symbol of justice but a complex psychological case study. And while the latter two films don’t repeat his origin, they continue to build on the themes of what caused him to be who he is. In The Dark Knight (2008), the Joker is terrifying precisely because he is inexplicable.

This trend wasn’t confined to traditional superheroes. Consider Casino Royale (2006), which reboots James Bond not for the next adventure, as he had been rebooted four times before, but at the beginning of his story. Here, he doesn’t begin as the suave, infallible operative of earlier films, but as a man learning the emotional and moral costs of espionage. Even Sonic the Hedgehog got an origin story!

Iron Man (2008) launches the Marvel Cinematic Universe not with world-saving action, but with Tony Stark’s reckoning with the consequences of his own weapons empire. Every character must be wounded, conflicted, and from somewhere. It is no mistake that Tony Stark’s origin focuses more on his alcoholism and troubled romantic life, which could resonate with the audience, than on his extreme wealth.

As audiences, we wanted to feel like anyone could rise up and become the hero, and by seeing these heroes begin as people like us, we felt empowered, putting ourselves into their shoes. 9/11 showed that our external heroes could fail, and the intimate experience of seeing the tragedy in our own living rooms made each of us want to feel empowered. For all the fantasy special effects, these films were at their heart a playbook for how each audience member could become a hero. It’s no surprise that during this period, it was our least human superheroes that struggled to resonate with audiences, Superman Returns, Man of Steel, the first two Thor films, and Eternals. These characters didn’t become heroes; they were born as heroes, so audiences didn’t need them.

A New Kind of Hero Post-COVID

Today, we are no longer reeling from a singular, unifying trauma like 9/11. Instead, we inhabit an age of chronic disillusionment. The COVID-19 pandemic became not a rallying point but a breaking point—exposing fractures in our civic trust, political institutions, and even basic consensus about reality. Where the post-9/11 era yearned for heroes we could become, the pandemic era has left us longing for something else entirely: the comfort that someone, anyone, in a position of responsibility will simply do their job.

We can see this anxiety in the fractured multi-verse style stories that began to take hold. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (2022) captured this feeling in the prestige market, while it took over in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). The progenitor of this trope, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), went from novelty project to cultural behemoth post-COVID in 2023’s Across the Spider-Verse.

But while this reflected the moment in a way that clearly intrigued audiences, it didn’t speak to their desire for something soothing. Consequently, the appetite for the 9/11 generation of superheroes has waned. While the studio system kept producing more of the same, it was the throwback exceptions like Top Gun: Maverick (2022) that captured attention and rose to the top. This film succeeds precisely because it returns us to a world where competent people lead, where moral clarity is possible, and where action matters more than angst. Rooster doesn’t need an origin story; he needs to hit the target. And he does.

Audiences seem tired of watching characters endlessly become. They want to see them do their jobs.

This brings us to the superhero season of 2025. Although Marvel released Thunderbolts*, widely regarded as their best film in years, the reveal that it was another origin story about a superhero team ultimately turned off audiences, who then didn’t show up.

Audiences instead have shown up on the superhero front for Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Both stories drop us into the action in media res, asking us to keep up with the characters who are already competent and decisive. We meet our newest Superman after a fight. 

Superman is notable here because his story does hint at his origin, but the film’s plot involves how he manages and subverts that in the present moment. One of the film’s major themes is how his origin does not define him. 

Both Clark Kent and Reed Richards have extreme powers—they have been entrusted by the people of their universes to protect them. Both of them fail and then [spoiler-alert] ultimately emerge victorious as they combine their deeply moral hearts with their advanced competences.

They care about people, so they protect them, and that’s a good enough reason. 

Today, America wishes our leaders and institutions would do the same. In the absence of that, we go to the cinema to see our fantasies and salve our wounds.

The post-9/11 era transformed not just geopolitics but the grammar of our storytelling. American films, once comfortable in moral simplicity, turned inward, seeking explanations, origins, and ontological justifications for every mask, every motive. That desire was understandable. In times of trauma, we reach for coherence. But as our culture has moved into its next phase, it has grown weary of explanation and demands action. We do not always need to know why someone became a hero. Sometimes, it is enough that they are one.

The post How We Lost Faith in the Hero’s Beginning appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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Spoiler Warning: Extensive spoilers for the 2002 and 2025 versions of Lilo & Stitch

There are few popular contemporary films that resonate more deeply with the Latter-day Saint ethic of family than Disney’s 2002 Lilo & Stitch. Its simple but stirring refrain—“Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind”—has made it a modern parable of sacrifice and loyalty. But the 2025 remake, which premiered this weekend as the number-one film in the country, rewrites that ending. And in doing so, it reflects both how our culture has changed in twenty-three years and suggests some ways we may be able to effectively adapt.

While the remake muddles the original’s message about familial sacrifice, it largely manages to sidestep those questions and introduces in its stead a vision of interdependent community care that is genuinely aspirational. While the film’s heart may not be in the right place, the actual solution it models points to the kind of supportive communities we can aspire to.

A New Ending and a New Ethic

The remake follows the original’s first two acts faithfully. As before, we find Lilo living with her older sister Nani after the death of their parents. Nani, just nineteen, struggles to keep custody of Lilo while managing job interviews and the chaotic new “dog” named Stitch, who turns out to be a genetically engineered alien fugitive. Through chaos and conflict, all three characters slowly bond into a makeshift family, climaxing in Stitch’s famous line, “This is my family. It’s little and broken, but still good.”

The original concludes by allowing Nani to succeed in this attempt. The film’s victory still includes and celebrates Nani making a considerable sacrifice for her family. The film concludes with a wildly contrived, but emotionally satisfying loophole—the intergalactic bounty hunters can’t take Lilo, because they are honoring the rules of the local animal shelter paperwork proclaiming Lilo as Stitch’s owner. And their family life is made stable with the addition of two of Stitch’s alien friends moving in.

While the logic of the ending is better the less you think about it, the emotions of the ending resonate because in the end, Nani still needs to sacrifice for her little sister, but that sacrifice pays off in familial happiness. 

The remake, however, opts for a more narratively tidy but emotionally fraught conclusion. This time, the bounty hunters attempt to erase Stitch’s newfound empathy. Lilo also gets kidnapped while trying to rescue him. Nani heroically arrives to rescue them both. But after Nani’s rescue, she doesn’t decide to return to their small, messy family unit; rather, she decides to leave for college to study marine biology. This means Lilo must go into foster care. Fortunately, their neighbor Tūtū is able to step in to care for Lilo.

Sacrifice to Self-Actualization

While this shift is certainly an effort to clean up the original’s messy plot machinations, it is more than that. It tells us something about how our culture has shifted and the kinds of endings that audiences are willing to accept as happy and satisfying.

There are concerns worth noting in this shift. Family responsibilities have been framed as obstacles and family relationships as supplements to career ambitions and self-actualization rather than a purpose unto themselves. To be clear, the remake softens this with sci-fi conveniences—a portal between Nani and Lilo for virtual visits—but it still leaves us with a regrettable takeaway: in a happy ending, family doesn’t cost anything.

Of course, Lilo & Stitch isn’t the first to take this approach to family. It was trumpeted in Eat, Pray, Love. Disney had previously created a similar narrative in Frozen. 

But it’s this message, and our passive acceptance of it, that produces so many of the ills endemic to our age. Elevating autonomy above relationship produces isolation, not freedom. Our culture today is lonelier, more anxious, and sadder than ever before. These outcomes are the predictable results of the underlying philosophy that Lilo & Stitch’s changed ending reflects.

And as research consistently shows, children removed from their families—even well-meaning ones—fare worse in foster care. 

The film’s ending, for all its narrative cleanliness, undermines the truth that strong families are built through our love and sacrifice, not someone else’s.

A Hopeful Turn

And yet, there’s something to appreciate in the remake’s solution—namely, the introduction of Tūtū, a warm and willing grandmotherly neighbor who volunteers to foster Lilo while Nani studies. In contrast to the original, where the deus ex machina comes from aliens, here the saving grace is an extraordinary, but terrestrial, member of the community.

This isn’t just a plot convenience—it’s a vision of what Daniel Burns from the University of Dallas has called “forged families.” David Brooks has argued that embedding our families within these community support systems provides the best outcomes for everyone involved. These forged families are support systems built from blood ties and then supported by neighbors, friends, mentors, and faith communities. 

By introducing Tūtū, the film ensures that Lilo is still surrounded by love. So even though the film stops short of celebrating sacrifice, it does offer a quietly powerful image: a community member stepping in to allow the best long-term outcome. Let’s be honest: in the long term, Lilo would be better off if her sister had a college degree. 

Unfortunately, while that aspirational image is powerful, in our own culture, that sort of help is increasingly rare. As sociologist Robert Putnam has documented, American social ties have frayed, and neighborly involvement is at a historic low. But the idea that someone like Tūtū could exist—that we could build communities where older adults care for the young and vulnerable—points toward a richer vision of family and society.

While the remake’s ethic may not be rooted in the kind of familial self-giving that defined the original, it uses its sci-fi conventions to sidestep the question altogether. In its place is a different version also worth emulating. Not every family can hold together without help. But the kind of help we should dream of isn’t more institutionalization—it’s more neighbors, mentors, and Tūtūs.

The new Lilo & Stitch reflects the erosion of family-first values. But it also gestures, perhaps unwittingly, toward the antidote: a community-oriented model where interdependence, not independence, is the ultimate good. It isn’t the ending we might have wanted. And it no longer teaches the sacrifice for families that is still core to making a broad community-oriented model work. But it may be the kind of positive message we need at the moment. 

The post Disney’s Family Values: When Ohana Becomes Optional appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

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For a Latter-day Saint, I’m unusually interested in alcohol.

I’ve rarely felt tempted to drink it; I know myself well enough to know it wouldn’t end well—when the Word of Wisdom speaks to “the weak and the weakest of all saints,” I smile and say thankfully, “That’s me.” And yet the names of unfamiliar spirits can send me down Wikipedia rabbit holes, seeking strange knowledge like the difference between “liquors” and “liqueurs,” or ales and lagers, and why James Bond drinks his martinis shaken, not stirred.

It’s the culture of the thing that attracts me: the history, the creativity; the vineyards from the Renaissance still run by the same families and the beers hand-brewed by monks; it’s the way a beverage (Scotch, bourbon, absinthe) can represent a place or a people or an era; it’s all the bottles in all the cellars of the world, filled decades ago by men now dead, waiting to be opened and emptied in an evening.

And we teetotalers get … Sprite? No, thanks. I’ll just have water.

This essay isn’t about alcohol. It’s about storytelling, and my vehicle for conveying my thoughts is Star Wars’ Andor, about to begin its second season on Disney Plus.

And then, a bit later, I realized something interesting was going on.

If you haven’t watched Andor, ask yourself: how would Hollywood usually treat these deaths? The guards were bad guys. They worked for the Empire, if only indirectly, and they were telling the protagonist at gunpoint that he had to give them money or go to jail. If they were in the original Star Wars trilogy, the movie would make sure you forgot them immediately—their dialogue would be limited to “Stop right there!” or “You rebel scum,” they’d be wearing helmets to cover their faces, and their voices would be distorted to help you pretend they’re not human. For allegedly antifascist art like Star Wars, it’s an awfully fascist way to treat people.

In Andor, these guys have faces, and their deaths have consequences.

While our protagonist anxiously builds a false alibi, we learn there are detectives on the case—two of them, the inspector and his deputy. The deputy has stayed up all night gathering evidence and thinks he can find the killer in a matter of days, but his boss is about to leave for a performance review where he has to report his crime statistics to the Empire. He knows what will happen if he ends his report with, “And by the way, two of my own were bumped off last night.”

The inspectors’ dialogue deserves an essay of its own. It’s an argument between youth and age, zeal and world wisdom, between an Imperial true believer and a very mild sort of Rebellion—it’s even a philosophical contest between deontology and consequentialism—and it’s all carried off with a mixture of wit and realism I can’t remember Star Wars ever achieving before. Both inspectors make good points; each is self-serving in ways he won’t admit, and if you think it’s obvious which decision they should make, then you probably haven’t thought the thing through.

And remember, these are the bad guys—low-ranking bad guys, no less, invested with agency, intelligence, and humanity. And they’re not the only ones.

Prison guards? They have faces, too. We see their sadism, yes, but also their fear of their victims and their mundane frustrations with being understaffed at work.

Imperial soldiers? We see their disappointment with bad assignments and their hope for a better life; we see their heroism, as when an Imperial colonel dies trying to save civilians.

Even in the Empire’s Gestapo, we see humanity: a rare woman in the officer corps, determined and talented, her eyes locked on whatever floats beyond the glass ceiling; a senior officer, undoubtedly a wicked war criminal but also a very good boss; a man—just one would-be righteous man—who’s realized what he’s involved in and desperately wants out.

We’ve come a long way from “These aren’t the droids we’re looking for.”

Now, back to alcohol.

There was a golden age of TV recently, or so I’ve been told. The mostly episodic shows of my childhood were replaced by a new era in which entire multi-season series were planned out before their pilots aired. Successful shows could become something like 40-hour movies, and writers used them to develop characters and themes in ways no visual medium had ever allowed before.

The golden age’s brightest gems could usually be found on HBO, whose The Sopranos and The Wire often appear as numbers 1 and 2 in rankings of the best TV shows of all time, with AMC’s Breaking Bad also in the conversation. If you follow publications that review pop culture, you could probably name another dozen acclaimed series from the era: Mad Men, parts of Game of Thrones, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Girls, Fleabag, The Americans, and so on.

And we teetotalers get … Marvel? Disney? I love Encanto and Coco, but I get tired of choosing between movies for children and movies for perpetual adolescents; why is it so hard for a Latter-day Saint grown-up to find a grown-up movie?

No—really. I know some of you just rolled your eyes: “Where does this guy get off calling my favorite movies adolescent?”

But ask yourself how the typical PG-13 blockbuster presents the world lately, and especially its protagonist. He’s usually young and attractive—I say “he,” but “strong female characters” often fit the type—and he’s defined by two things: some special gift and some dream or destiny implied by the gift.

The gift and destiny define the story, too: maybe the protagonist knows his destiny, and the story will tell how he and his gift overcame the haters and doubters to attain it; or maybe he doesn’t know his destiny, and the story will tell how he discovers it. Either way, the decisive moment comes when the protagonist chooses once and for all to believe in his destiny and believe in himself.

What time of life does that story symbolize, if not adolescence, the age of discovering your talents and choosing your career? The story’s not about children, who define themselves by what they love and not yet by gifts and destinies; it’s not about the elderly, who have only one grand destiny left and yet often say they’re in the happiest time of their lives. It’s certainly not about the middle-aged, who are defined less by gifts than by burdens, and the many people who depend on them.

No: today’s typical blockbuster, in part for the most practical of box-office reasons, is about the most self-centered decade of American life: 15 to 24, the age when childhood dependency is ending and adult commitments aren’t yet formed—when you can choose whatever future you wish, and anything seems possible if you just want it hard enough. In fact, it’s the age portrayed by the original Star Wars, the age of Luke yearning to escape his uncle’s farm and “Do or do not, there is no try.”

There’s nobody like that in Andor.

In Andor, the rebels’ leader is daring and devious, but he can’t fight or even know what’s going on without his network of guerrillas and informers, any one of whom, if caught, could mean the end of him and all his schemes. The rebels’ financial backer has plenty of money, but she needs help to cover up what she’s doing; the Empire is closing in, and we watch in heartbreaking real time as she discovers she has already sacrificed her family to the cause.

Like human beings, Andor’s characters need each other. Like grown-ups, they know it. And so, when they interact—speak, touch, trust, doubt, betray—it actually matters.

Does it make each character less important not to be self-sufficient, not to make a difference by himself—not to have the one gift to rule them all?

Much the opposite. Let me ask you: when was the last time you saw a movie or series whose hero was elderly? I don’t mean a show with Harrison Ford or Samuel L. Jackson in his mid-70s, with directors and stunt coordinators straining the limits of their art to pretend he can still beat everyone up. I mean an old person behaving like an old person; in fact, I mean the true hero of Andor, the protagonist’s mother, Maarva, a sick old woman hobbling about on a cane.

She hasn’t always hobbled. In a flashback, we see her in an adventurous middle age, stealing salvage from a crashed ship minutes before the navy arrives and then risking her life to rescue an orphan from certain death. Later we hear she was the president of some big civic organization. But those days are long past when the show starts, and now she spends most of her time resting in a chair, nagging her aimless son when he’s present and fretting while he’s away.

Most blockbusters that included such a hero—and there aren’t many—would force her through the same adolescent character arc as their protagonist. Her incapacity is all in her mind! She just needs to believe in herself! Then she can prove she’s still got it, that she’s not so old after all.

Maarva might be the first elderly character I’ve seen whose heroism doesn’t require her to become young again, who conquers with the powers appropriate to old age. It’s her experience and wisdom—and even her day-to-day uselessness—that let her see the truth while her younger friends, blinded by daily cares, treat Imperial occupation as just one more of life’s hassles to be put up with and outlasted. And when she speaks, it’s the love she’s earned through a lifetime of service that makes her friends listen.

Not that they want to, not at first; at first, they don’t know whether to laugh or cry. What she’s taking on is so comically beyond her strength and so likely to cost them her life—forget spies and stormtroopers; if she doesn’t stay warm and take her medicine, she’s not going to last long enough to be captured. But once again, she sees what they don’t: the worth of what’s left of her life and the worth of what she can do with it.

* * *

Alcohol won’t always be dangerous. I don’t know whether its nature will change or ours will, but there will come a day when the saints and their Master drink of the fruit of the vine in their Father’s Kingdom, and no alcoholism or drunk driving or domestic violence will follow.

Someday, storytelling will be safe, too. Someday, “adult” won’t mean “pornographic,” and “mature” won’t mean “nihilistic”; someday, our culture won’t ask us to choose between childishness and wickedness.

In the meantime, though, I’ll be grateful that healthy grown-up stories aren’t quite as rare as Word of Wisdom–compliant grown-up drinks, even if, for the moment, our culture shows little interest in either. Star Wars looks set to move on as if Andor had never happened, and I expect it to keep spinning out mostly bad, mostly adolescent stories as long as people will still watch them, after which it may well be replaced by something still worse and more adolescent. (Probably something distributed on TikTok.)

But so what? I don’t have to watch all that. And if Andor’s moral revolution in Star Wars was doomed to fail, at least it had—like Maarva—the wisdom to know it should still try.

The post Why Andor’s Grown-Up Heroes Matter to Faithful Adults appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

For Valentine’s Day, I looked at five recently released films that attempt to define love for modern audiences. These movies, spanning genres from romantic comedy to action thriller, offer a revealing snapshot of contemporary views on relationships. What is the state of love at the movies? And what does that offer as a commentary about love in today’s world? 

The five films each have several romantic relationships. They cross genres, platforms, and creative teams: 

• “You’re Cordially Invited,” the Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell romantic comedy, about two weddings scheduled for the same venue.
• “Kinda Pregnant,” the Amy Schumer comedy about feeling jealous about her pregnant friend and meeting the man of her dreams.
• “Love Hurts,” the Ke Huy Quan action film about a lost love taking him back to his organized crime days. 
• “La Dolce Villa,” a Hallmark-style romance on Netflix starring Scott Foley and set in Italy.
• “The Gorge,” a horror-thriller about two military operatives who fall for each other while guarding opposite sides of a mysterious gorge.

These are not the best romance films, nor do they represent the entirety of the industry or perceptions of romantic love; they are intended to be a snapshot. What’s notable is that despite how different the films are, there were several notable trends that were present across the films.

The Path of Attraction

Across these films, a distinct four-step pattern emerged in how the romantic relationships develop.

1. They have something in common

2. One person likes something groan-worthy about the other person 

3. They do something transgressive together 

4. The man does something to win the woman’s favor

The first step is establishing a shared connection. This is a long-established trope across genres from “When Harry Met Sally” to “The Matrix.” In our films, the similarities range from comparing the longest sniper shots to bonding over a busy lifestyle.

Step three involves sharing in a transgressive act. “You’re Cordially Invited” involves our two romantic leads involved in escalating bad behavior, but it’s only when they join together near the film’s end that the romance starts. “La Dolce Villa” has plenty of romantic moments, but the relationship doesn’t gel until they break into a booked venue to take pictures. “Love Hurts” has our two leads go back to the mob boss, against all good sense. This step establishes that it is our two characters against some other broader source. Sometimes this is defined—like our characters in “The Gorge” sharing their name in violation of orders. Other times it is more general, such as in “Kinda Pregnant,” where our characters have sex with the garage door open, scandalizing the neighbors.

Finally, the woman in the relationship sets terms the man must meet. Amusingly, in both “The Gorge” and “La Dolce Villa” this was the men agreeing to try and dance. The required terms are not always so anodyne (or positive.) In “Love Hurts,” our main character’s long lost love insists he gives up his peaceful life in real estate to return to the mob. This dynamic managed to stay intact even in “Kinda Pregnant,” where it is the female lead who betrays the male lead with her lie about being pregnant, and yet he’s the one who returns with the grand gesture to win her back over at the film’s end. This is repeated also in the married relationships we see. In “Kinda Pregnant,” both wives with children stayed in relationships with their husbands because of the child care they provided. And in “Love Hurts,” the C plot involves a grunt figuring out how to apologize appropriately so that his wife would take him back. 

This pattern is far from new, but it remains durable in the way we conceptualize the development of new romantic relationships. 

A Lack of Purpose

One of the striking similarities across the majority of these films is the absence of a greater purpose in the relationships they depict. While romance in film has historically been intertwined with larger ambitions—building a family, pursuing a shared creative endeavor, or overcoming an external challenge—these stories frame relationships as primarily a means of fulfilling adult emotional needs rather than contributing to something larger. 

“Kinda Pregnant” is the only one of the films that connects romantic relationships with parenthood, but it largely attempts to show why they do not need to be connected. Still, the longing of the protagonist Lainy, suggests a hard-to-entirely-dismiss desire to merge them.

“The Gorge” makes an interesting counterexample. Our main characters are set in a dangerous world and discover they are better able to survive when they help protect each other. It’s a subtle but poignant lesson that seems to be largely lost in the nearest romance films. 

Physical Binary

A notable trend in the five Valentine’s season films is the way they handle physical intimacy. The first kiss and the first instance of sex occur within the same moment, creating a stark physical binary. This means there is no build-up—no initial kiss, no gradual increase in physical intimacy that allows for tension and anticipation. Instead, the films present physical romance as an all-or-nothing event, where characters transition instantly from not in a relationship to in a sexual relationship. 

“La Dolce Villa” is a notable example because, in many ways, it hits the traditional beats of romantic comedy. But when they finally decide to set aside their professional conflicts, they kiss and immediately proceed to bed. There are no intermediate physical moments or any physical manifestations of a deepening relationship. While more expected, this pattern repeats itself in the other films. “Love Hurts” has one relationship that grows very close but never realizes itself with a kiss. The other relationship storms through both. 

The exception that proves the rule in this case is “Kinda Pregnant.” In this film, Amy Schumer’s character pretends to be pregnant and then meets the man of her dreams and has to navigate her lie. The physicality of her relationship is a major theme because she is trying to wear a fake baby bump. So while she kisses him on the first date and doesn’t sleep with him until the second, the film presents this as atypical to highlight the plot elements. 

This trend may be a result of relying on the will they/won’t they question to dominate the narrative. But most of these films had many more questions to explore. Well over half of “The Gorge” comes after we’ve answered that question. “La Dolce Villa” has an entire secondary plot about who will own the house after our romantic leads consummate their relationship. The only film that leaves the answer to the question until the end is “You’re Cordially Invited.” This means that there’s no compelling plot reason to rush things. If anything, they’re abandoning lots of dramatic potential that could help enhance the final acts of these films. 

This approach contrasts with older films such as “Titanic,” “Notting Hill,” or “Crazy Stupid Love,” which promote contemporary sexual ethics but still use a spectrum of physicality to communicate the state of a relationship to an audience. 

Deprioritized Romantic Relationships

One of the interesting phenomena of these films is what a relatively small role the romantic elements even play. Despite being romance films set for Valentine’s Day releases, they spend a lot of their time on broad comedy, shoot-em-up action, or thriller mysteries.

In both “La Dolce Villa” and “You’re Cordially Invited,” the romance is treated as a replacement comparable to the relationships the main characters have with their children, and as they let their close relationship with their children go, they find a romantic relationship to fill the space. A romantic relationship is not treated as primary but interchangeable. Other times the romance is accidental. In “The Gorge,” our characters meet each other in a total fluke. While “Kinda Pregnant” shows our only character who wants a relationship, she only finds one once she stops trying. “Love Hurts” shows our only character who has made a long-term attempt to woo his partner, and of the five films, he is the one who has the least success by the film’s end.

But in “Love Hurts,” when Marvin tries to build his life, he first gets a job, then a home, then success, and only once he has the regional real estate salesman of the year award does he pursue romance. 

In “You’re Cordially Invited,” two couples get married. One of them has been out of college for a year. Both have good jobs, live together, and are going to move across the country. But after they get married, they get the marriage annulled, deciding that it is too big of a step. They stay together, but they decide to get married later when they’re ready. 

“Kinda Pregnant” starts with our main character believing that her boyfriend will propose because they’ve been dating for four years, and she’s now turned forty. He doesn’t and instead asks to have a threesome. While our main character is upset, we catch back up with him later to show that his path was a good path for him, and he’s happy. 

What’s interesting is that these movies often talk warmly about marriages that must have occurred at young ages and produced happy families, but those are only ever our characters’ backstories. Marriage and relationships are consistently treated like a cherry on top of an already-completed life rather than a component part of a completed life. 

The State of Love at the Movies

Taken together, these trends paint a picture of contemporary romance in film that is both familiar and subtly evolving. The structural patterns of attraction—finding commonality, embracing quirks, engaging in transgressive acts, and ultimately proving devotion—remain firmly in place. However, modern romantic films increasingly frame relationships as secondary, treating them as a means of fulfilling emotional needs rather than a key pillar of personal or shared purpose.

Perhaps the most telling trend is the deprioritization of romance as a narrative focus. While these films are marketed as love stories, they often treat relationships as secondary to personal growth, comedic chaos, or external conflict. The protagonists find love almost incidentally, as though romance is something that happens when all other elements of life have been resolved. This is particularly where romance emerges as a substitute for shifting familial relationships rather than as a goal in itself.

The underlying message of these films is clear: romance is not a necessity but a pleasant addition to an already complete life. While this reflects a cultural shift toward personal fulfillment and self-sufficiency, it also raises questions about whether love, as traditionally understood in storytelling, is losing its central place in cinematic narratives. As modern films continue to reshape the romance genre, it remains to be seen whether future stories will continue to treat love as an afterthought or find new ways to reestablish its significance in shaping meaningful lives. And dare we hope they might return to portraying the kind of love God invites us to? In the meantime, we can use this holiday—every day—to celebrate the real thing.

The post Love at the Movies: Why Romance is Dead, but Hollywood Pretends Otherwise appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

But to me, faith and its challenges are neither relics of history nor mere fodder for Hollywood. They became so much more on August 16, when a man broke into my missionary apartment and stabbed my companion and me multiple times in our sleep. We woke up and fought with the man for about 10 minutes, just struggling to preserve our lives. This experience was extremely rare and was so targeted and so unheard of that it was simply unpreventable. Through God’s mercy alone, we were eventually able to call 911 and escape. I sustained 9 stab wounds. I was 19 years old and had been serving as a young missionary for just ten weeks of what was supposed to be an 18-month assignment. My area of service was just north of Houston, Texas, and the COVID-19 pandemic was in full force.

When I look back on that night now over four years later, I view it all as the most sacred night of my life. Every wound, every scream, every breath, every prayer was the making of a miracle and has brought me closer to God than I could ever imagine. However, in my mind’s eye, I can still see and feel the original terror of that night. Blood soaked the carpet and stained the walls like the zombie escape room I did with friends in 11th grade. We were trapped inside our own home fighting for freedom, with one man preying on our sleeping innocence and vulnerability: an eerie parallel to Heretic’s setting. Bleeding out on our floor with a stab through my stomach—my companion with one to her neck—made a striking comparison to Heretic’s ending for the fictional Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton.

I could not have been more mistaken. Although Heretic’s directors and actors showed a marked effort to improve representation in many areas, nothing could justify the targeted emotional and physical consequences that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could experience from this film. It is almost as if the writers built a trojan horse of happy interviews showing their good faith to build an accurate wardrobe, research the Book of Mormon, and learn missionary lingo, while deep inside the film was an attack that, whether advertently or inadvertently, could significantly harm members, missionaries, and investigators of the faith. They justify and say this is a fictional film, but that’s because they have not heard my story.

From the very first day, I described the physical scene as a real-life horror movie. Many people reached out after my recovery, good-naturedly suggesting that it could be made into a movie someday. But I knew four years ago that something like what I went through should not be made into a movie—at least one could never attempt to show what actually happened in that apartment. I could not imagine anyone else having to see or feel that violence, and I knew the full experience could never be captured. I cringed after returning home when I realized how many people find entertainment in movies with gore and terror every single day. 

Yet, for every captive audience fascinated by horror, there are people around the world who live captive in horror as their reality. Sure, you can say, the movies are just fiction, but Heretic is not a fictional world. The writers and directors, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, made it off of real life: the lives of righteous, virtuous, hard-working young adults all around the world dedicating themselves to bringing hope and salvation to others. Their mission is to save, and yet this movie, with actual missionary outfits, with their conversations, their name tags, their teachings, and their sacred calling, strikes harm against their message and against missionaries themselves.

Originally, I will admit I was hesitant to speak up about this movie at all because of my proximity to its controversial nature. I resolved long ago that I never wanted my story to be used for anything but a promotion of love and faith in God. After careful consideration though, I do not believe that this runs contrary to that purpose. Since God saved my life, I promised that I would stand for Him with every breath, and I cannot help but feel that He would be weeping to see His precious missionaries portrayed in violence and His sacred doctrine used in the context of horror for entertainment. Add my mission experience to my undergraduate studies and career beginnings in journalism and religious freedom advocacy, and it almost seemed as if God had given me a perfectly tailored background to prepare me to speak up when Heretic was released. 

I know that not all Latter-day Saints or even all missionaries will view Heretic the way I do. It is important to note that the A24 team did make an effort to correctly portray some of the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I also have returned missionary friends who feel that Heretic brings new understanding and compassion towards the missionary experience. Acknowledging all of this, my experience has shown that the good does not outweigh the bad in this case, and both the creators and innocent viewers may be completely unaware of what a movie like this could promote.

I read hundreds of reviews praising the acting and the masterful cinematography—and I kept asking myself, where are the people disturbed by Heretic’s message? Where are the believers banding together to push back and promote faith? Where are the watchdogs saying that something about this movie goes a little too far? I thought if I just kept scrolling, I would surely find a wise internet stranger who shared my concerns, yet there was nothing more negative to be found than simply calling the movie ‘slow-paced’ or boring. So, in its absence, I hope in good faith to shed some light and speak here for the other side: to counter the popular narrative and raise a voice for believers, for missionaries, and for the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ, which I hold sacred.

Hollywood’s Fascination with Latter-day Saints 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long been a favorite feature religion of Hollywood. Many have referred to the faith as an easy target, with its mysterious and sensational elements like visiting angels, modern temples, ‘extra scripture,’ sacred underclothing, and even the iconic missionary duo being used to capture an audience. Heretic’s writers are no exception. With this high intrigue, the Church has been held under a very close microscope for the public eye, where Hollywood has managed to portray just about every facet of the Church … except the truth.

Our current prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, has invited “responsible media” to be “sympathetic” in using the correct name of our church, but even these directors and actors who claim to accurately represent the Church have referred to it in slang terms disregarding the religion’s central focus on Jesus Christ. These inaccuracies snowball to simply perpetuate the preexisting stereotypes of misrepresentation, and religious misrepresentation is religious persecution so long as it engenders doubt, disbelief, mistrust, or disrespect toward any religious sect.

Along with such negligent factual errors, the movie’s villain, Mr. Reed, concludes that the underlying factor and the only true form of religion is control. Specifically, misogynistic control. This theme seems to push a very niche concern from former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where some attack priesthood leadership or claim, like Mr. Reed, that members are blinded from the Church’s history or accept teachings just because it is what they have been taught throughout their lives by religious authority figures. 

As a practicing adult and covenant woman in the Church of Jesus Christ, I strongly reject this claim. While fully fleshing out a counterargument to this could be an entire article by itself, it is sufficient here to say that I have felt loved and empowered by leaders of both genders within the Church and learned that, although naturally imperfect, they are called by God. This knowledge has come from a witness of the Holy Spirit, which is the only way to find the truth of these things, and yet remains an element completely unaddressed by Heretic’s writers.

It’s about Heresy, not a Heretic

I do not expect everyone to believe as I do, nor do I oppose open discussion if that is Heretic’s intent here. After all, asking questions in pursuit of truth is central to the gospel of Jesus Christ. But the way Heretic raises questions—through displaying violence and disrespecting sacred beliefs—could never create bridges of understanding. It only serves to endanger young, faithful men and women seeking to do good and does so under the guise of “religious dialogue.”

Perhaps the most sacrilegious moment comes when a woman lifts a missionary’s skirt, exposing her temple garment—a private, sacred expression of faith akin to the Muslim hijab or Jewish yarmulke. The film’s creators had no qualms about violating a young woman and this intimate aspect of her belief. 

“First, they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

At its core, Heretic is not just a movie about Latter-day Saints. The film is not concerned with whether the heretic is a missionary leaving their former beliefs or Mr. Reed attacking their traditional religious upbringing because the individual believer or religion was never the main point. No, this movie is not about a heretic at all. It is just about heresy—about promoting disbelief or irreligion—and the most disturbing part is that the actors and directors enjoyed generating this doubt and did so intentionally.

Real Religious Dialogue Will Speak the Truth

As someone who has experienced a very similar reality to what was portrayed, I can confidently say that Heretic completely misses the mark. From the doctrinal attacks to the physical ones, the movie was designed to engender doubt. But I have heard just about every doctrinal argument Mr. Reed raises (trust me, they would be no surprise to real missionaries). I have suffered extreme violence as a missionary that could give me every reason to turn against God. I have had my faith tested and tried, almost to the point of dying for it, but unlike these fictional characters, every one of these experiences proved to build my faith. Beck and Woods thought they were making a movie to question absolute truth—to even question the existence of God—but what they did not know is that they were portraying my path to learn the truth about God with absolute certainty. 

Simply put, what Heretic got wrong is not so much the doctrinal inaccuracies as it is the missed potential that this movie had to finally represent the truth of a path shared by millions of church members and billions of believers all around the world.

Indeed, the truth is that one of the only reasons I survived my own completely unpredictable danger is because my companion remembered and followed instructions we read only the day before in the missionary handbook as part of our routine studies. The truth is that my priesthood leader felt inspired months prior to utter a blessing with minutely specific protections that would save my vital organs. The truth is that any missionary who lay dying would not, like the fictional Sister Paxton, use her last breaths to deny the reality of prayer. The real truth is that God would have never left them as He never left me, and that as I wrestled in the darkness against a force of death greater than I could overcome, I prayed with all the energy of my soul and felt the presence of God save me as clearly as if He were standing before me. 

The truth is that people like Mr. Reed do not win and that God protects and provides, whether in life or in death so that we can witness of His love and mercy.

This is the true story of our faith, the power of belief. The spiritual witness, the miracles, the connection to heaven—this is the real truth of religion, and no attempt to portray members or missionaries is complete without it. This is the opportunity for true religious representation that Heretic lost and that the media misses any time they fear promoting religion or deny its good fruits for lack of tangible evidence.  But if you, like Mr. Reed, are looking for something tangible in your experiment of belief, start with my story. Because I am tangible evidence that tragedy and horror, when fought with Christ, will build faith, not destroy it, and that with true religious dialogue this same story can make anyone a believer, not a heretic.

The post Heretic in Real Life: A Missionary’s True Story of Survival and Faith appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

In the thirteen articles of faith, there are many beliefs attributed to Latter-day Saints, but only one behavior, “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”

We are seekers—specifically seekers of the good and beautiful. 

In our social conversation, no cultural product is discussed more than the movie. It’s self-contained, small enough to be accessible, but long enough to develop a theme. It’s replicable, so it can be discussed broadly. And it integrates more types of art than perhaps any other single cultural product. 

What makes a film praiseworthy, virtuous, and lovely? In probing different films, I’m certainly not making final judgments on them. I value all of the films I discuss below.

I started my search by focusing on seven principles that were a distinctly Latter-day Saint answer to the question of what makes a movie good—a sort of thirteenth article of faith criticism.  

Entertaining and Fun

In many ways, Latter-day Saint art criticism takes a lesson from Aristotle. He defined good art as the realization of a true idea in an external form created from human’s natural pleasures.

So while the truth may be the more important goal of art, without the pleasure that accompanies it, it’s just a sermon. 

This first principle is often overlooked by contemporary film criticism. The perfect movie has to be entertaining. After all, humankind exists so “we might have joy.” 

Consider the charm and humor of The Lego Movie. Its quick wit, colorful animation, and playful storytelling make it an entertaining ride while also delivering meaningful messages about creativity, self-worth, and community. In contrast, a film like Cars 2 struggles to find this balance; it sacrifices engaging storytelling for an overly complex plot and pacing that can be too slow or scattered, failing to keep viewers invested or entertained. Cars 2  is a poor movie not just because of its questionable themes but because it feels like a slog to sit through.

Even films that tackle heavy themes or difficult topics can maintain a sense of fun and adventure. Toy Story 3 deals with themes of growing up and letting go, but it still has plenty of humor, heart, and action that make it a joyful engaging watch for audiences of all ages. This blend of emotion and excitement keeps the film from feeling too heavy. On the other hand, The Good Dinosaur is an example of a film that misses the mark on entertainment. Despite its stunning visuals, its pacing is slow, and its more somber tone often leaves viewers feeling weighed down and ready to check out. 

The important messages that a movie imparts may ultimately be the greater good, but if you fall asleep halfway through, it doesn’t matter. 

Teaches Truth

The other half of Aristotle’s equation is that a good film must seek deep and important truths in ways that simply can’t be internalized through other mediums. President Gordon B. Hinckley once said, “We are the creatures of our thinking.” Films have a powerful role in shaping our thoughts and perspectives, so it’s crucial they promote themes that elevate, inspire, and reflect divine principles.

Inside Out is a great example of this, exploring emotions in a way that acknowledges the complexity and value of even difficult feelings like sadness. The film offers an honest and uplifting look at personal development. In contrast, Frozen II tackles themes of self-discovery but places a strong emphasis on self-fulfillment without fully integrating themes of community or duty. While the film encourages doing “the next right thing,” the journey can feel disconnected from higher principles that teach where true happiness is found—particularly in relationships and service.

Family is central to God’s plan, and films should reflect the truth about family relationships and unity. The Incredibles showcases a family working through conflicts and misunderstandings, ultimately growing stronger through unity and support for each other. By contrast, The Simpsons Movie humorously deconstructs family life, often showing dysfunction and irresponsibility as sources of humor. While intended for laughs, the portrayal can risk making the family unit appear burdensome rather than a source of growth and love.

A film’s themes should also align with eternal principles like love, faith, and sacrifice. Paddington 2 shines in this regard, offering a warm narrative about kindness, generosity, and the power of looking for the good in others.  Films should avoid themes that distort or misrepresent gospel truths. Peter Pan glamorizes eternal childhood and avoiding responsibility, suggesting that maturity and growth are unnecessary burdens. This romanticizing of carefree youth distorts truths about life’s purpose and the value of embracing responsibilities.

Ultimately, films should elevate and inspire. “The righteous love the truth,” so any great film must teach it and help us understand it more deeply.

Moral Clarity

In a family film, the audience should generally be able to distinguish between right and wrong actions. While all moral films should have some clarity about right and wrong, films for young children can’t exhibit as much complexity as more mature narrative films can. 

This doesn’t mean doing away with all moral grappling. But that grappling is often simplified. Encanto, for example, makes it clear that family unity and bonding are good. There remain questions about how to best achieve that, but because of the family film’s audience, that core principle is not ambiguous. 

Take Moana, for example. The film teaches true principles of courage and responsibility in caring for her family. In my opinion, it is one of the great contemporary family films in terms of teaching truth. But the film sets up morally ambiguous choices where she must protect her family or obey her father. Great family films can get away with that if they explore the consequences of both the good and bad, but in Moana, the overall good of her journey means we never grapple with the negative effects of her impulsiveness and disobedience. 

These kinds of tensions are important for mature minds to explore but can prevent younger children from creating firm core principles and can undermine the important child-parent conversations that the best family films facilitate.

Even when the sides are clear, this shouldn’t mean every character always does the right thing. But the narrative should ensure the audience is “instructed sufficiently” about what is good and what is not, and allow choices their natural consequences. 

In The Lion King, Simba’s journey to reclaim his role as king deals with themes of guilt, responsibility, and redemption, but it never blurs the line between right and wrong. Scar’s villainy is clear and consistent, and his deceit is never excused. And Simba fully grapples with the effects of his choices. In contrast, Despicable Me makes light of behaviors like theft and trickery, presenting them humorously and even as important goals to fulfill. 

Consequences are the classic mechanism for communicating this moral clarity. The Secret Garden is a great example. Characters who are selfish or cruel face loneliness, while those who are kind and compassionate find joy and healing. But Frozen complicates this principle. Elsa’s defiant anthem, “Let It Go,” celebrates her rejection of responsibility, portraying it as empowering without fully addressing the harm caused by her choices. Elsa is reunited, but because she never makes amends for her selfish storm out, it is not always clear that “wickedness never was happiness.”

It’s also important for a film to maintain a consistent moral framework, where right and wrong don’t change based on convenience or plot needs. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe creates a world where sacrifice, courage, and love are always portrayed as virtuous, while betrayal is condemned. Meanwhile, Zootopia occasionally portrays morally ambiguous behavior as justified for the greater good, which can leave viewers unsure about what is truly right.

Virtue should be shown as a source of strength, not weakness. Wonder does this beautifully, portraying kindness, empathy, and resilience as the true markers of strength that help characters rise above bullying and prejudice. Ultimately, moral clarity is important in family films because of the youngest viewers, who can create a false sense of right and wrong by seeing characters who behave in immoral ways without consequence. While we should seek out moral films for all ages, family films should have clarity about the principles that lead to happiness and goodness. 

Character Growth and Redemption

The heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ is the ability to grow and improve while finding redemption. In Latter-day Saint belief, no one is beyond hope. Alma frequently describes this as a “mighty change of heart.”

Films that reflect this principle allow characters to progress, seek forgiveness, and find redemption. An effective story allows characters to grow meaningfully. Ratatouille follows Remy’s journey from thief to respected chef, showing how embracing talents with honesty and creativity can lead to personal growth. On the flip side, The Boss Baby relies on over-the-top personality, with the characters stagnant, still displaying all the same weaknesses they did when they came off the assembly line in the film’s opening. 

Redemption is central to character growth. Cars portrays Lightning McQueen’s transformation from selfish arrogance to humility and kindness. Through his journey, he learns to value relationships over fame, reflecting gospel themes of repentance and renewal, taking direct accountability for how he hurt the others in the town. Megamind, on the other hand, gets only halfway there. Yes, the titular character moves from villainy to heroism over the course of the film and eventually saves the day, but he never addresses the harm he caused throughout his life. Change of heart, yes, but redemption, no. 

Too often in film today, characters don’t find change or redemption but merely justification. In Maleficient and Cruella, the title villains never reject their bad behavior and find redemption from it, rather we are shown complicating factors that make their villainous behavior more sympathetic, saving the characters in the audience’s eyes “in their sins” rather than through growth and repentance.

Stories about growth and redemption must be grounded in hope and forgiveness. The Peanuts Movie captures this beautifully through Charlie Brown’s continual struggle to do what’s right, finding forgiveness and hope even when he stumbles, while The Fox and The Hound never offers their two protagonists any real shot at redemption despite both working for it.

Films that allow characters to grow and find redemption inspire audiences to believe in the possibility of change, second chances, and becoming something better.

Artistic Quality

Beyond films that are entertaining and true, Latter-day Saints seek out films that are lovely. In contemporary film criticism, there are many principles that critics look at when determining the beauty of a film. While these attributes will certainly change as the medium grows, this is a good starting place as we look for the beautiful. 

These beautiful films use the technical capabilities of their day to the fullest of their capabilities. Films like Toy Story and The Wizard of Oz are great in part because of the technical advancements they were making. 

But deeper, more long-lasting principles of beauty also apply here. Kubo and the Two Strings teaches an important lesson about the power of stories in crafting who we are, but it’s mostly memorable for its stunningly beautiful animation. Similarly, Spirited Away enhances its themes of humility and resilience through an art design that enhances the overwhelming fantastic breadth of the character’s world. 

The power of scriptwriting and storytelling is particularly important for unifying these many important elements. Films like Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, and Star Wars hold onto their audience through the technical excellence of their scripts. 

The power of film’s music sets them apart as multi-media experiences. Both traditional musicals like The Sound of Music or The Little Mermaid and films that rely on music only as a score, such as How to Train Your Dragon or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, are elevated by the exceptional music that elevates their themes. 

Acting and vocal performances are crucial in bringing characters to life and enhancing a film’s overall artistic quality. Performances such as Robin Williams in Aladdin, Gene Wilder in Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, and Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins take their films to heights that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. 

Bad examples here are numerous, but certainly aren’t worth mentioning. 

Doesn’t Trivialize or Desensitize Us to Evil

For truly moral content, we often need to confront evil, but if that evil is presented in some way, it can ultimately serve to desensitize us to it. It is long since established that repeated exposure to content of this kind has just that effect. Ultimately, “the Spirit of the Lord doth not dwell in unholy temples,” which certainly applies to film. 

Even in films where there is moral clarity, the repeated depiction of evil behavior can have a negative effect. Home Alone, for example, has no doubts about the evil of the robbers and the righteousness of Kevin in protecting his home, but the degree and frequency of violence in the film can have a numbing effect anyway. Similarly, the recent Transformers One may have had powerful themes about maturity and responsibility, but it was the slapstick repetition of profanity that the children I watched it with were repeating on their way out of the theater. 

Similarly, Bambi doesn’t shy away from violence. But in that film, the violence is shocking and severe. If anything, the film’s treatment of it makes the audience more sensitive to it. 

Respect for the Human Body

Finally, the praiseworthy films I’m seeking would simply not portray certain things on screen. For many Latter-day Saints, the inclusion of things such as violence, nudity, and drug use is the barometer of what makes a film acceptable to watch.

In my opinion, it is no coincidence that these sensitivities all reflect a fundamental respect for the human body. Regardless of how moral the sexual content in question is, it simply has no place being made graphic via the medium of film. The same goes for violence against the human body, no matter how just that violence may be within the story of the film.

The inclusion of content of this kind is the primary mechanism that the Motion Picture Association uses in its rating system in the United States. These ratings don’t reflect whether the behavior depicted is or isn’t moral, just whether or not it’s shown on screen. 

Because of that, to even qualify as a “family film,” most movies need to do well on this metric. Understanding that, however, does help us realize just how limited MPA ratings are in finding praiseworthy movies.

Even then, the rating system can let films slip through the cracks. Coraline, for example, treats the body in grotesque ways that aren’t reflected in its rating. Ultimately, some things simply don’t belong on our screens.

As I wrap up, I want to emphasize that many of those films I used as counter-examples of these principles remain favorites of me and my children. We can accept that a film is not quite the “Perfect Family Movie” while still appreciating the virtues it does bring. 

Art criticism certainly isn’t for everyone. For some, it can feel that by dissecting a movie, we kill it. But in my view, Latter-day Saint film criticism is an important way to pursue our distinctive Latter-day act—seeking the beautiful. When we find films that truly capture the spirit of goodness, we want to elevate them both so that more of our friends and families can enjoy them and to help encourage those who produce movies to create more like them.

The post In Pursuit of the Perfect Family Movie appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Yet, Heretic, which features Hugh Grant in a maniacal role that surprises those who still most closely associate him with titles like Sense and Sensibility and Two Weeks’ Notice, has left many viewers assuming that the film’s thesis is voiced by its villain. That thesis is that all religion is manmade and fundamentally about control.

The film starts with a hook that writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (A Quiet Place) apparently wrote a decade before embarking on the rest of the film, the idea of a pair of sister missionaries being drawn into a home to discuss religion with someone who turns out to have not only ideas that will challenge them spiritually, but plans that will threaten their very lives. The film acknowledges, but side-steps, the missionary safety rule about having another female in the house in order to teach with a lie from Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) that his wife is in the other room baking pie. 

The sense of foreboding is immediately palpable, but the horror tropes that increasingly alert the audience that this is a bad situation accelerate alongside an increasingly adversarial discussion from Mr. Reed on the problems he sees with religion. The two run so much in parallel, in fact, that it begins to feel like the fear these young women are clearly feeling is a result of having their beliefs criticized and not the fear for their physical safety. 

They seem to be as much afraid that he is right about their church as they are that he might hurt them, the equating of which is a little insulting considering how much criticism missionaries and members of the Church, in general, hear constantly (his arguments are older news than he thinks) and how much unchecked violence happens against women all the time. In some ways, it would be a male privilege to hear this oration and be more afraid of the ideas than of the locks on every door and the proximity of the unhinged gentleman who clearly has nefarious intent. 

It calls to mind the recent interview from The Graham Norton Show that went viral when actress Saoirse Ronan sat with an otherwise all-male panel listening to them discuss the ridiculousness of self-defense tactics like using the butt of your phone as a weapon. Actor Paul Mescal’s sarcastic response was, “Who’s actually going to think about that? If someone attacks me, I’m not going to go—phone!” The other men in the room proceeded to laugh and act out the supposed silliness of that thought process before Ronan interrupted them by saying, “That’s what girls have to think about all the time,” which left the others speechless and the females in the audience clapping their agreement.

Yes, it was unusual to give the “baddie” nearly half the film for his big “why I did it” monologue, but it wasn’t the only reason that the audience came away from the film feeling the filmmakers must agree with him. 

Despite a more nuanced than usual depiction of Latter-day Saint characters (sloppy and incorrect references and terminology notwithstanding, CLICK HERE for a great fact checking piece), the film ultimately fell into the trap that seems inevitable when a film weighing atheism against belief is made by non-believers. There is an underlying assumption that a person of faith is just a person who hasn’t suffered enough to realize they’re an atheist yet. 

I don’t think most faithful people assume that all atheists secretly believe in God, but it seems to be the irrevocable mainstream view that if you push a faithful person far enough, they will ultimately admit that their belief was a front all along. 

It is perfectly verbalized by Anthony Hopkins as Sigmund Freud in the 2023 film Freud’s Last Session, an imagined meeting between C.S. Lewis and Freud in the final days of the psychoanalyst’s life. In their day together, an air raid siren sounds, and as they evacuate to a shelter, C.S. Lewis reacts with terror (and what we would identify as PTSD), and later on, Freud criticizes him for showing so much fear: “Where was your great faith? Where was your precious joy in meeting your beloved Creator? Disappeared. Why? Because you know, beyond all your self-protective lies and your fairy tales that he does not exist.”

Even that film, which had such great potential for a debate on equal footing, ultimately came down much more heavily on Freud’s side of the argument, though C.S. Lewis is perhaps the world’s most famous modern example of a person whose life took him the other direction from atheism to faith. 

Heretic, too, as it left some of the lectures behind and began to slap together some blood and gore to appease the genre, wouldn’t let anyone keep their faith. The two missionary protagonists seem to have differing levels of conviction from the beginning. Sister Barnes is a worldly wise and subtly skeptical counterpoint to the endearing naivety of her companion, Sister Paxton, who continues to thank Mr. Reed for his time and his interesting thoughts while trying to flee. 

When (spoiler alert) Sister Paxton is the only one of the two left and bleeding out together with Mr. Reed, who has finally been dealt a deserved blow, he uncharacteristically asks her to pray for them. And even in this moment with the threat so much disarmed, she says, “Prayer doesn’t work” and then describes a scientific experiment that proved it (as though science, and a single experiment no less, would be the thing to trust on such a topic). “Lots of my friends were disappointed when they heard that,” she says, “But I don’t know why. I think … it’s beautiful that people pray for each other, even though we all probably know, deep down, it doesn’t make a difference.”

In the end, I saw this film as a call to action for filmmakers of faith. Not to make movies just to clapback at something like Heretic, but to express cinematically the effect and experience of faith, truly felt, even or especially in times of greatest pain and sorrow. It is clear that there is an overwhelming feeling among those in the mainstream media that belief toward unbelief is the only direction the current actually flows and those of us who still believe just haven’t made it far enough down the river yet. 

Little do they know that the very being whose name Christians carry suffered so severely and, in His final moments, called out to, rather than denied, His Father in Heaven. And His ancient apostles faced pain and suffering worthy of the horror genre and yet did not deny the divinity of their master. If faith were solely dependent on things only going well for the faithful, then Christianity would have quickly ended when the Romans were sending Christians to the lions for their beliefs. But the possibility of death by beasts didn’t kill their conviction because not all believers are fair-weather friends of Jesus. Our faith is not solely reliant on our ability to overpower our enemies or live a life free of pain.

Heretic’s ideological conclusion seems to come down pretty hard on the side of the charming British atheist who is incidentally also a psycho killer. But the seeming inevitability of that outcome doesn’t have to stay an inevitability forever. 

We all have to face “the problem of pain,” but some do it and yet believe. It’s time we saw it on film.

The post The Strange Faith Crisis at the Heart of ‘Heretic’ appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Heretic is a horror film distributed by A24. It arrives in theaters this fall. It stars Hugh Grant, as well as relative newcomers Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East.

What is Heretic About?

Heretic is about two sister missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sister Paxton and Sister Barnes. Hugh Grant plays Mr. Reed, who requests a visit from the missionaries. Reed kidnaps the sister missionaries.

Who is involved in creating Heretic?

The film was written, directed, and produced by childhood friends Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. They are known for writing the script for the popular film series A Quiet Place. This is the largest production Beck and Woods have directed themselves. In a Q&A at the film’s world premiere, they described themselves as lapsed evangelicals.

Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, both former Latter-day Saints, portray the sister missionaries. Hugh Grant describes himself as not a believer.

Heretic hasn’t come out yet. How do you have details about it?

While the film has not been released nationwide, it has had its premiere. The Q&A below is spoiler-heavy based on previous screenings of the film. While most Latter-day Saints will not want to watch the film, we felt that it was important to discuss the portrayal of sister missionaries in an open and honest way so members can participate in and be aware of the dialogue surrounding the film. 

How does the film begin?

The film opens with the two sister missionaries sitting on a bus bench with a condom advertisement. They discuss condom sizes and which sizes Sister Barnes’ ex-brother-in-law wears, which leads Sister Paxton to describe watching pornography. She describes watching a video where the performers were interrupted by the person in the next room. One performer looked aghast “like her spirit left her.” Paxton says that this helped her testimony.

We learn that the senior companion, Sister Barnes, has taught many people who have been baptized, while Sister Paxton hasn’t taught anyone who was then baptized. Sister Barnes commits that they are going to get Paxton a baptism.

We are then shown a montage of them doing unsuccessful street contacting. 

They then approach a group of teenage girls because Paxton says she has “a good feeling about them.” Those girls then ask Paxton about her “magic underwear” and then pull her skirt down, revealing her temple garments before she can answer. Paxton is very embarrassed.

How do the missionaries meet Mr. Reed?

The missionaries had received a referral for Mr. Reed, but someone in their ward warned them not to go. They go anyway because Barnes wants to get Paxton a convert. Mr. Reed is very friendly and invites the missionaries in. 

They inform him that they cannot come in if there is not another woman present. Reed says his wife is in the kitchen cooking a blueberry pie. 

The missionaries walk in and start a conversation. Reed says he thinks people should have some belief and the conversation begins on a friendly basis. Sister Barnes shares a story of her father’s illness, and Mr. Reed uses this as a reason to question her faith. Barnes says when she dies she wants to come back as a butterfly. He then begins to lecture them about what he sees as the weaknesses of their religion.

When his wife does not appear within a few minutes, the missionaries press that she needs to come out or they need to leave. Mr. Reed goes into the kitchen to get her, and the sister missionaries realize that the blueberry pie they smell is actually from a candle. 

While Mr. Reed says he’s getting his wife, he’s actually stealing the missionaries’ bikes from the front so no one will know they’re there. 

They decide to leave, but the door is locked. The windows are too small to escape from, and their cell phone doesn’t have reception.

How does Reed begin to mistreat the missionaries?

The missionaries ask him to let them go, but he tells them that his locks are automatic and cannot be unlocked until the morning. 

Mr. Reed is obsessed with the idea of control, so at this point, he never physically hurts the missionaries but rather tells them they can make their own decisions. He tells them they must go into the back room if they want to get their coats and that the house exit is out the back. When they get their coats, they realize that the key to their bike lock has changed pockets.

Reed continues to insist they can leave at any time they’d like through two doors from that backroom.

Worried about being harmed, Barnes convinces Paxton to stay and listen to a lecture Mr. Reed wants to give them about religion. 

What is Reed’s Theory of Religion?

Reed begins to tell the missionaries that religion is about iterations. He claims that the story of Jesus Christ is merely a reworked myth of previous cultures like the Persian Mithras or the Egyptian Ra.

He compares Judaism to “The Landlord’s Game ” and Christianity to “Monopoly,” which is substantially similar but better marketed. He compares Islam to “Monopoly: Ultimate Banking Edition” and the Church of Jesus Christ to “Monopoly: Bob Ross Edition.”

He also plays the songs “The Air I Breathe” and “Creep” by Radiohead, which share similar melodies and chord progressions.

While in this room, Sister Barnes sees a letter opener which she gives to Paxton to put in her pocket. Barnes tells Paxton that if she says the phrase “magic underwear,” that means to stab Mr. Reed with the letter opener.

Is there any way for the missionaries to get out?

Mr. Reed insists throughout that the missionaries are not locked in the house but that there is an exit through the back, and they just need to go that way. 

There are two doors out the back, and when he finishes his lecture, he tells them to leave either through a door representing belief or disbelief. Sister Barnes convinces Paxton that they should go through the belief door, and they proceed even though it clearly leads to a basement. Reed immediately locks the door behind them. 

When they get into the basement Barnes notices a loose floorboard with nails in it. Soon, they see a woman walking across the room with a blueberry pie. They hear Reed through a speaker. He lectures them about miracles and says that he brought them here to witness a miracle. The woman is going to eat the pie, which has been poisoned, and she will then come back to life. Reed calls her “the prophet.” She is elderly and in rags. Her eyes have thick cataracts, and she doesn’t speak. She scoops the pie with her hand, eats it, begins to spasm, and then dies in front of the missionaries. Reed forces them to check for a pulse, which she does not have.

Does anyone come to check on Sisters Barnes and Paxton?

Yes, there are occasional scenes with Elder Kennedy. He is a single, middle-aged man played by Topher Grace. He wears a missionary tag, and we see him cleaning the local chapel. When he notices that the missionaries aren’t back at the chapel by the usual time, he goes out into the snowstorm to find them. 

He stops by several homes, including Mr. Reed’s. Reed insists that the missionaries have never come, and Elder Kennedy leaves before returning for a brief second to pass along a pamphlet to Mr. Reed.

While Mr. Reed is at the door, the missionaries are screaming and getting a set of matches. They use them to try to create smoke that Elder Kennedy might see, but it doesn’t work.

Has Mr. Reed planned this encounter?

Yes. We see Reed in a study where he has created a model of his house and has planned in detail how he expected the sister missionaries to act throughout his plan. The entire architecture of his house, including metal roofs to block cell phone signals, has been built with this abduction in mind.

What happens to the woman who ate the pie?

When Sister Barnes and Paxton go back down, Paxton notes that it appears like the woman has moved. Eventually, she sits up and, in bursts of words, describes a vision of a train in the clouds, ending with the words, “It’s Not Real.”

Mr. Reed then comes into the basement. He lectures the missionaries, insisting they call what happened a miracle. Barnes argues with him, saying that it’s an illusion. She calls it “magic—” and in suspense, we see Paxton is ready to stab Reed if Barnes says “underwear,” but instead, Reed stabs Barnes, killing her. 

He then insists that when the prophet said, “It is not real,” she meant that life is actually a simulation. To illustrate this, Reed recounts a Daoist thought experiment where a man had a dream of being a butterfly but wondered if he was really a butterfly having a dream of being a man. Reed says Barnes was not a real person but part of the simulation. He then cuts open her upper arm and pulls out what is clearly subcutaneous birth control, claiming it is actually evidence of the simulation. 

Paxton then says it’s birth control and (inaccurately) says Barnes would have faced church discipline if anyone knew she had it. 

How does the movie end?

Reed then tries to convince Sister Paxton of the miracle, but Paxton says that what happened is that the old woman actually died, and a second woman was brought into the room to replace her. Paxton tells Reed that she doesn’t believe his trick went according to plan. She believes that when the second woman said, “It’s not real,” it was a warning to the missionaries.

Reed is skeptical, saying if that is true, there must be a door underneath the basement. 

Paxton immediately finds the door and discovers the dead body of the woman she saw before and cages filled with women dressed exactly the same as the one who had died eating the poison pie.

Paxton then says Mr. Reed actually believes “the one true church is control” and that he had been controlling them the entire time. Reed then lectures Paxton about how much she is controlled, cutting off a finger of one of the women to demonstrate. He then uses the example that Paxton has even been told she has to wear “magic underwear.” At this, Paxton stabs Reed with the letter opener and runs back up into the cellar, but she’s still locked in. 

Reed follows and then stabs Paxton. She then admits that she doesn’t believe that prayer works, but she thinks it’s nice anyway. 

Sister Barnes, who had been presumed dead, stands up and impales Reed with the loose floorboard, and he dies. Barnes immediately collapses again. Paxton then goes back into the sub-basement, finds the bicycle lock, which she unlocks, and then goes outside. She briefly hallucinates a butterfly landing on her finger before passing out in the snow, presumably dead.  

Is the movie good?

It is suspenseful. The set design is above average. There are some moments of great cinematography and other moments where it’s poor. The dialogue is not written very well. Hugh Grant is a strong actor, but both Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, who play the sister missionaries, feel like amateurs who can’t communicate with much nuance or carry the weight of the narrative. 

Because of its heavy emphasis on lecturing about atheism, the plot often feels weighed down and dull. In that way, it’s kind of like overly preachy religious cinema like “Saturday’s Warrior,” but for atheists.

In terms of its artistic merit, it’s average, certainly not great or even good. It also doesn’t have the makings of a cult horror movie, nor is it good enough to be an award contender. It’s unlikely to be remembered in a year by anyone except academics who study Latter-day Saint depictions in movies or horror movie buffs.

Who is the Heretic?

A heretic is someone who believes the wrong thing. The title is likely intended to make its audience wonder if the missionaries are heretics because Reed “proves them wrong” or whether he, as the non-believer predator, is the heretic.

Does Heretic have an agenda?

The creators say they want the movie to spark conversations about religion. Mr. Reed is portrayed far and away as the most intelligent character in the movie. Paxton’s vision of the butterfly at the end is portrayed as a hallucination. Barnes briefly coming back to life to kill Mr. Reed could be seen as a miracle.

In the Q&A, the directors said that they were influenced by the “new atheist” movement’s writers, such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.

Could this result in missionaries getting hurt?

A copycat attempt is one of the worst possible outcomes here. The creators don’t seem to be trying to create them, though. It is shown that Reed has spent years planning this, including building the very architecture of the home to enable it. It also requires strong manipulation from Reed to work around the missionaries’ safety standards. 

What criticisms could Latter-day Saints face as a result of the film?

While Mr. Reed mocks Latter-day Saints generally throughout the film, there are only three cogent criticisms that he makes:

1. Joseph Smith instituted polygamy for his own sexual satisfaction. This is an old criticism, and recent research into the timeline of Smith’s polygamous marriages is making this claim feel more out of touch with reality. 

2. The story of Jesus Christ is a reworked myth from other ancient cultures. Interestingly, the screenwriters have Reed, who otherwise seems well-read, repeat easily debunked claims about mythological Gods to make this point. 

3. Religion is all about control. This is Reed’s main conclusion in the film, so it may be picked up on by others as well. 

How does Heretic make Latter-day Saints and the Church of Jesus Christ look?

Different viewers will have different takeaways, but a group of those who have seen the film reported having, on average, more positive feelings about missionaries but worse feelings about the Church of Jesus Christ as a result of the movie.

Is Heretic Insulting to Latter-day Saints?

Those who feel insulted will likely notice that the film spends a lot of time implying that all faith is unintelligent. In the end, Sister Paxton reveals the reality of her lack of faith. The missionaries are sexualized in ways most missionaries would be uncomfortable with. The film also seems to revel in embarrassing the sister missionaries, such as pulling down their pants, comparing their religion to Bob Ross Monopoly, and repeating “magic underwear” ad nauseam.

One person who watched the film said, “Whoever wrote that was really angry that a sister missionary said no when he tried to hit on her.”

Those who feel the film respects Latter-day Saints will likely focus on the fact that the missionaries are the protagonists and that, in the end, Sister Paxton outwits Mr. Reed. 

In our assessment, however, the creators of the film wanted audiences to take the message that religion is obviously wrong but might make you a better person anyway. Different viewers will certainly make their own interpretations.

The post Heretic Movie: All Your Questions Answered appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Much of the entertainment of the world will have a deleterious effect and there are many teachings directed at Latter-day Saints that warn about the dangers of the horror genre specifically. Many horror films and stories foster a sadistic appetite or fascination with the occult, which can erode faith and compromise virtue.

In writing this article, I acknowledge that I am walking a thin line. I do not seek to endorse darkness or violence but rather their opposites. I suggest that stories centered around themes of death, danger, and sin present a unique opportunity to educate the soul on the reality of evil, its consequences, and how to avoid it. Such narratives refine our ability to regulate negative emotions, prepare us for danger, help us process trauma, and, when approached thoughtfully, can ultimately strengthen our faith in God and His Plan of Happiness.

Lessons in Horror

While these stories may seem to glorify darkness, many horror narratives actually emphasize profound lessons about morality, family, death, and faith, showcasing Christ-like virtues like love, courage, forgiveness, and sacrifice. These virtues shine brightest when contrasted with darkness and danger, like diamonds on a black backdrop; the darkness amplifies their message of resilience, making it all the more memorable and impactful. Even though the most uplifting moments in these stories are often framed by terror, it is precisely this juxtaposition that makes their message so powerful.

The horror genre aims to evoke fear, often using supernatural or psychological threats to confront our own mortality. Stories in Latter-day Saint scripture and history resemble horror narratives as they highlight the downfalls of nations and individuals and warn the world of the dangers of straying from the Lord. Similarly, original Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales like Cinderella and Snow White were dark and violent, using fear to teach moral lessons. Over time, these tales were softened, and in this process, they were diminished in their ability to teach moral lessons and help individuals, especially children, process fear and difficult emotions.

Additionally, for some, horror stories can emerge as a way to confront problems and find solace in difficult times. For example, following the world wars, horror saw a rise in popularity. At the time, horror stories symbolized societal fears of mass death and destruction, offering a way for people to cope with war-induced anxieties and process collective trauma. 

An “Exorcise” for the Mind

Horror stories can offer solace during difficult times by mirroring personal struggles and providing guidance. Research shows that engaging with fear in a controlled, fictional setting like horror films has therapeutic benefits by helping regulate emotions and reducing real-life anxiety. By acting as “mental simulations,” horror stories allow viewers to practice coping strategies for real-world fears. 

Similarly, most of our dreams, especially during REM sleep, are stress-related or nightmares and can function like horror films in processing negative emotions. Threat Simulation Theory suggests that these dreams help individuals rehearse responses to danger, enhancing survival instincts. Studies on trauma survivors support that dreams serve as a space for coping with future threats, aided by theta brainwave activity that reprocesses emotional memories.

Art—through film, books, or painting—can be seen as a form of conscious dreaming, weaving universal symbols into narratives that help process trauma. This shared function of art and dreaming serves a practical, biological function, helping humans become better equipped for both psychological and physiological survival by organizing and interpreting emotional experiences in a way that fosters resilience and adaptability.

Studies during the COVID-19 pandemic found that fans of horror and apocalyptic films displayed greater resilience and emotional regulation. Their exposure to fear in these controlled environments better prepared them for the chaos and uncertainty of the pandemic, reducing their reliance on avoidance when facing real-world challenges.

Similarly, Brigham Young taught when opening the first theater in Salt Lake City that theater can be an “exercise for the mind,” a safe place to understand “evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards; the weakness and the follies of man, the magnanimity of virtue and the greatness of truth. The stage can be made to aid the pulpit in impressing upon the minds of a community an enlightened sense of a virtuous life, also a proper horror of the enormity of sin and a just dread of its consequences. The path of sin with its thorns and pitfalls, its gins and snares can be revealed, and how to shun it. The Lord knows all things; man should know all things pertaining to this life, and to obtain this knowledge, it is right that he should use every feasible means; and I do not hesitate to say that the stage can, in a great degree, be made to subserve this end.”

Know Your Limits

Regardless of the benefits of horror, which can come for some individuals, the research also indicates that for those who have previously existing types of psychological or PTSD disorders, watching horror films can act as triggers and cause major setbacks in their recovery. It is clear that gender, circumstances, age, sensitivities, and an array of other considerations should be taken into account when engaging in this level of intense storytelling. 

Additionally, just because a story or film was helpful once does not mean it will be equally beneficial upon rewatch. We need different stories at different times in life, and a constant dose of horror is rarely what anyone needs. Moderation and thoughtfulness in our entertainment choices require ongoing discernment between oneself and the Lord. The spirit, intent, and thought we bring to these stories often determine whether they’re helpful or harmful, oftentimes far more than the content itself ever could. 

Discernment

In the wake of the new For Strength of Youth pamphlet and many other modern revelations, it is clear the Lord is placing a profound trust in His saints. This is a call to a higher and holier life, one that is concentrated on revelation, covenants, and celestial principles over mosaic law-like checklists of dos and don’ts.

While Young obviously wasn’t referring to horror stories that we have in our day and age, his advice toward entertainment and the possibility of good can still be applied. My concern is for the saints whose minds and hearts could be uplifted by engaging with the horror genre in meaningful ways. While I admonish you not to force yourself to watch something if the Spirit guides you otherwise, I believe that, when approached with discernment, this genre has the potential to inspire, teach, and strengthen in ways that align with virtuous principles.

Elder Ballard has repeatedly offered a simple yet sure way of discerning what content is or isn’t appropriate to watch by directing us to the teachings of Mormon—a man who himself saw far more horror in this lifetime than anyone perhaps ought to. He says, 

The prophet Mormon said that each of us is given the Spirit of Christ to know good from evil; everything that invites us to do good is of God. On the other hand, anything that persuades us to do evil is of the devil, for he and those who follow him persuade no one to do good. This simple test will guide us in judging television and other media programs.

God does not sanitize our mortal life but rather increases our ability to discern among the terrible and the virtuous from which we need to learn for our immortal progression. Likewise, I warn against sanitizing our stories, and I fear that doing so may lead to dangerous levels of naïveté and unrealistic expectations of happiness and comfort in this life. This practice of sanitizing, more than avoiding these stories altogether, can cause a desensitization towards sin, a blindness to its consequences, and a casualness towards human suffering that leaves us devoid of empathy, potentially leaving individuals incapable of mourning with those who mourn. It is far more valuable to learn how to find happiness, peace, and purpose in spite of the world’s darkness and evil.

Conclusion

Latter-day Saints have a responsibility to seek after virtue, to sift the wheat from the chaff and make from it bread, to shine light in the darkness, and to learn all that the Father yearns for us to know. I hope this Halloween season, if you decide to test your resolve on a horror story you find yourself staring your fears in the face, exorcizing your demons, and freeing your ghosts. I hope that your dread for sin and its consequences sinks deeper in your soul and your heart is lifted by Christ-like examples of courage and virtue in the face of true fear. I encourage you to take the opportunity with every story, whether it be a frightening dream or a ghost tale across the fire, to learn more about the state of your soul, what you fear, and how to overcome it. Horror stories can act as powerful catalysts to the healing and fortifying power of Jesus Christ—He who fears nothing, has overcome all evil and is eager to help you do the same, offering light in the darkest of circumstances and strength in the face of every fear.

The post A Case for Virtuous Fright: Latter-day Saints and the Horror Genre appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

This doesn’t make those films bad, but it does make them more complicated, and not often the best fit for the teenaged kids that could otherwise most benefit from the superhero narrative of good vs. evil.

In that respect, Madame Web is a welcome reprieve. This is an unabashed superhero origin story. And in many respects, it demonstrates the durability of the genre. 

Madame Webb owes much of its success to the animated Spider-verse films. Those films introduced audiences widely to the idea of multiple spider people, and in a recurring motif from the first film the basic beats that define those various spider people, and the near infinite variations those beats can take.

Madame Webb hits each of those beats while toying with the formula enough to keep it interesting. 

The moral at the center of the film focuses on our ability to influence our futures. After a traumatic incident, Cassie discovers that she has precognition. At first she feels helpless to stop the future predicted in the visions. But when three innocent girls are about to be murdered by the villainous Ezekiel Sims she can’t stand by and is thrust into the role of protector. As the film reaches its climax, both Cassie and the three teenagers she protects learn to step up. And the film seems best suited to teens about their age and a little younger thirteen to sixteen.

Dakota Johnson has the acting chops to anchor the film. She ably handles the expositional relationship building, the determined character develop, and the thriller action scenes. Sydney Sweeney, Isabel Merced, and Celeste O’Connor, who play the three teenagers each portray a character who will one day become Spider-woman in the comics. They never try to do too much, and always deliver when the film requires it. Adam Scott is also a standout as “Ben Parker” who spends much of the film excited to become an uncle. 

The villain, Sims is far and away the film’s weak point. His motivation is confusing. And it appeared at several points as though his dialogue was dubbed. But his simplicity as a villain helped along the film’s theme. There was little question about what the right thing for our protagonists to do was, only whether or not they would do it. 

The film utilizes its range of PG-13 profanity, and the violence is just enough that I probably wouldn’t want my own kids to see the movie until they were teens. In terms of messages about family the film really shines. The film begins with a flashback to Cassie Webb’s mother nine months pregnant and upset about how her child is getting in the way of her work. But much of Cassie’s growth as a character comes from dealing with the damage of that attitude, and learning to embrace her own nourishing side. Each of the three girls are dealing with similar struggles. And Cassie learns the full strength of her powers as she also learns the full truth about her roots. 

I certainly don’t want to overpromise on the film. It’s effects are clunky, and the plot is predictable. But it’s a movie you can let young teeangers watch without having to worry about explaining too much afterward, and that they will dependably get a good takeaway from. And if the parents happen to catch it too, they  will at least have a fun time. Two and a half out of five stars. 

“Madame Web” releases in theaters on February 16th.

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