• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
  • CR Radio
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
Elizabeth Debicki and Donald Sutherland star in a scene from the 2020 film "The Burnt Orange Heresy." (CNS photo/Jose Haro, courtesy Sony Pictures Classics)

Movie Review: ‘The Burnt Orange Heresy ‘

August 12, 2020
By John Mulderig
Catholic News Service
Filed Under: Feature, Movie & Television Reviews, World News

NEW YORK (CNS) — There’s Arianism, Nestorianism, semi-Pelagianism and now there’s “The Burnt Orange Heresy” (Sony). It’s title notwithstanding, however, this literate but mannered suspense drama has nothing to do with false religious teaching and everything to do with art.

Thwarted in his ambition to be an artist himself, Milan-based journalist James Figueras (Claes Bang) has instead become a critic and art historian. Though he wows clueless American tourists with his lectures, behind the scenes, James has a shady past that’s about to catch up with him.

Accompanied by his newly acquired live-in girlfriend Berenice (Elizabeth Debicki), James travels to the lakeside villa of high-powered art dealer Joseph Cassidy (Mick Jagger). There Cassidy gives James the opportunity for a world-class scoop when he offers him the chance to interview famously reclusive painter Jerome Debney (Donald Sutherland).

There’s a downside to the deal, however. Using his knowledge of James’ misdeeds, Cassidy blackmails him into stealing one of Debney’s much-coveted works once he gains access to the master’s studio. Though Berenice is aware of James’ apparent good fortune, she’s in the dark about his peril.

An ironic plot twist aside, what follows is mostly sleek but talky arthouse fare. Still, “Heresy” is not without its aesthetic assets.

Sutherland is in clover as a courtly eccentric. So, too, is Jagger playing the embodiment of aggressive decadence. He menaces his interlocutors with his teeth, as though he might take a bite out of them at any moment. And cinematographer David Ungaro capitalizes on the foggy loveliness of Lake Como, its peacefulness contrasting starkly with the ferment among the characters.

On a thematic level, things are less convincing. In adapting Charles Willeford’s 1971 novel, director Giuseppe Capotondi and screenwriter Scott B. Smith play with the supposedly blurred boarders between truth and illusion. But they ultimately fail to provide viewers with any definite insight.

They also restrict the appropriate audience for their movie when, early on, they linger in the bedroom James and Berenice share within hours of their first meeting.

As circumstances drive James from one transgression to the next, we’re left to wonder about his moral status. Is he merely an ethically weak man entrapped into becoming a genuinely evil one? Or have events only served to bring his innate ruthlessness to the fore?

Grown-ups undisturbed by some mayhem and seaminess may care to ponder that issue. The impressionable and those in search of casual entertainment should stick to orthodoxy.

The film contains scenes of harsh but bloodless violence, strong sexual content, including graphic nonmarital activity as well as upper female and rear male nudity, drug use, about a dozen rough terms and a few crude and crass expressions. The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Copyright © 2020 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

John Mulderig

Catholic News Service is a leading agency for religious news. Its mission is to report fully, fairly and freely on the involvement of the church in the world today.

View all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Pathfinders: Five Archdiocese of Baltimore women who made history
  • RADIO INTERVIEW: Dining with the Saints
  • Fire guts historic Catholic school in parish connected to St. John Neumann
  • Sister Elizabeth Ellen Kane, O.S.F., dies at 81
  • Legendary communist-era priest, Father Blachnicki, was murdered, Polish authorities confirm

| Latest Local News |

Catholic Charities’ William J. McCarthy Jr. named Loyola’s Business Leader of the Year

Sister Joan Cooper, O.S.F., dies at 94

Pathfinders: Five Archdiocese of Baltimore women who made history

| Latest World News |

Vatican envoy warns UN General Assembly racism mutating and ‘reemerging’ globally

‘We all need to do more’: House hearing demands action over Nicaragua regime’s anti-Catholic persecution

Notre Dame Cathedral reopening date announced as reconstruction on its famous spire wraps up in eastern France

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • An invitation from God
  • Vatican envoy warns UN General Assembly racism mutating and ‘reemerging’ globally
  • ‘We all need to do more’: House hearing demands action over Nicaragua regime’s anti-Catholic persecution
  • Notre Dame Cathedral reopening date announced as reconstruction on its famous spire wraps up in eastern France
  • AI and the meaning of life: Tech industry turns to religious leaders
  • Movie Review: ‘John Wick: Chapter 4, a festival of fatality’
  • Pope calls European bishops to be prophetic voices for peace
  • En la frontera de México y EE.UU., defensores de migrantes que buscan asilo hacen un llamado a la acción
  • At U.S.-Mexico border, migrants’ advocates call for action on U.S. asylum policy

Search

Membership

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2023 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED