In ‘Under the Banner of Heaven,’ a Decapitated Baby Reveals the Ugly Depths of Mormon Extremism
A herky-jerky adaptation of John Krakauer’s 2003 nonfiction book of the same name, Under the Banner of Heaven is the latest high-profile miniseries that would have been better off as a two-hour feature film.
Writer/showrunner Dustin Lance Black’s seven-part FX on Hulu drama (April 28) is the based-on-real-events story of the 1984 investigation into the murder of a Utah mother and her infant daughter, and the ugly revelations about the Mormon church that ensued. It is fascinating when it comes to details about the religion’s insular culture, rituals, and dogma, and yet unsteady when it comes to just about everything else. Even with Andrew Garfield as the detective charged with solving this heinous crime, it’s a wobbly stab at prestige TV that never manages to get itself on solid footing.
Under the Banner of Heaven’s shakiness is telegraphed from the outset, with whiplash camerawork capturing detective Jeb Pyre (Garfield) playing with his kids on the front lawn. He’s called away from this fun to the home of Brenda Lafferty (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who’s been brutally slaughtered and left for dead in her kitchen. Worse, her 15-month-old daughter is upstairs in the bassinet, decapitated—a sight that brings a naturally aghast Pyre to tears. Pyre is rattled by the brutality of this slaughter as well as by the fact that he casually knows the Laffertys, who are fellow members of his beloved LDS Church. Before Pyre can even catch his breath, he’s thrown for another loop when Brenda’s husband Allen (Billy Howle) appears outside, covered in blood and professing his innocence.
Andrew Garfield Is Having a Crisis of Faith
As a devout Mormon with a family of his own—two daughters with wife Rebecca (Adelaide Clemens), as well as a dementia-addled mother (Sandra Seacat) who lives with them—Pyre is well aware that this case will be of great interest to the LDS Church. His faith is thus always front and center throughout his investigation, especially given that it also creates friction with his non-Mormon Native American partner Bill Taba (Gil Birmingham). Their dynamic is testy but respectful, although as with so much of the series, it comes off as hazy and half-formed, as if a scene or two has gone missing that might more fully explain it. Nonetheless, they generally work well together, and find in Allen a talkative widower who’s willing to explain how his wife and daughter’s murder must be related to the twisted inner workings of his clan, known as the “Mormon Kennedys,” which over the previous few years had taken a turn toward lunatic extremism.
Krakauer’s book paralleled the saga of the Laffertys (and the inquiry into Brenda and her child’s deaths) with the history of Mormonism, and in particular, the violent and polygamous roots of Joseph Smith’s upstart religion. Under the Banner of Heaven does likewise, but Black and directors David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) and Courtney Hunt (Frozen River) attempt this at random intervals, such that there’s no balance between their past and present action. Moreover, these flashback sequences appear and disappear without any proper contextualization, making them feel arbitrary and sketchy. Though Black wants to link the bloodshed that defined Mormonism’s origins to the massacre of Brenda and her child, the lines he draws are often crooked and unclear, thereby undercutting his larger portrait of the fanaticism that led to this calamity.
It doesn’t take much digging by Pyre and Taba to unearth a treasure trove of holy crazy. As Allen and others recount, the Laffertys were a true-believer clan run by an authoritarian father (Christopher Heyerdahl) who demanded total adherence to scripture—and, in particular, to the Mormon beliefs that women be subservient housewives with no agency. This made the independent and career-oriented Brenda a dangerous black sheep, and put her at odds with Allen’s brothers Samuel (Rory Culkin), Robin (Seth Numrich), Dan (Wyatt Russell), and Ron (Sam Worthington), the latter two engaged in a battle to earn their father’s blessing as the family’s next leader. All of these characters soon become prime suspects, as well as figures who afford a window into the strict doctrine and convictions of Mormonism, what with its unique language (for example, husbands are referred to as “priesthood holders,” since they’re the Christ figure of the household), secretive ceremonies, and sexist decrees about keeping women in their obedient place.
As Under the Banner of Heaven eventually explicates, Brenda’s demise was related to the Laffertys’ escalating ties to fundamentalism (and their embrace of polygamy and anti-government, anti-taxation sentiments). Yet while it touches upon many intriguing aspects of LDS life, the series falters when it comes to portraying the bigger picture of the Laffertys’ slide into zealotry. Black’s narrative is frustratingly jagged, failing to strike a consistent rhythm. Much of that is the corollary of his decision to spell out certain elements of Mormonism and to leave other key points and dynamics vague and confusing. It’s also, however, due to an onslaught of off-putting rapid mini-montages that strive to convey Pyre’s headspace, and his tormented questioning of his own faith and its vicious underpinnings.
Those hastily edited interior-state interludes are this venture’s biggest misstep, both because of their grating incessantness and because they interfere with Garfield’s performance; rather than letting the actor express, on his own, Pyre’s increasingly complicated feelings about the case and his church, Under the Banner of Heaven routinely does it for him. The result is that Garfield’s turn comes across as schematic and skin-deep, sabotaged by a formal approach that wants to explain the very things he should have been allowed to communicate himself. Unfortunately, that shortcoming is emblematic of the enterprise as a whole. There’s at once too much packed into the series’ installments and yet not enough, with Black and company expending unwarranted attention on a cornucopia of detours and diversions that are only sometimes fleshed out, go nowhere illuminating, and muddle this affair’s primary censure of the Mormon church as a violent 19th-century-style cult-y outfit.
Consequently, one can imagine Under the Banner of Heaven more successfully succeeding as an in-depth 10-part series or, preferably, as a streamlined film devoid of its unnecessary tangents. As it stands, however, it’s a lopsided look at LDS horrors whose impact is muted by its messiness.
“Under the Banner of Heaven” is on Hulu from April 28.
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