Higher Ground (2011)

Absolutely brilliant

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

I was there. I knew all of those people. This is the most accurate depiction of the Charismatic movement of the late 60s, 70s, and 80s before everything went 'Evangelical.' There were good people in those circles, even a few saints, but many were just like the fools in this film--uneducated, narrow-minded, and essentially Hardshell Baptists with long hair and bell-bottoms.

You don't often see stories like this. Usually, these small church groups, often called "cults", contain three types of people: fanatical believers, hypocrites, and victims.Not here. There aren't any villains and there aren't any dopes, just ordinary human beings trying to find some sort of guidance in life through the conduit of religious beliefs.Belonging to this group -- or any other solidary group -- involves conformity. You're accepted and loved as long as you embrace the limits. The same holds for the U. S. Marine Corps. All of us find comfort in a warm and responsive community, and some of us are willing to sacrifice personal freedom for it.The group here is not stupid or extreme. They believe that Jesus is with all of us; all we have to do is accept his guidance. He's knocking on the door and we should let him in.The heroine, Vera Farmiga, who was also the director, goes through a troubled youth until an auto accident converts both her and her rock musician husband. Hubby can hack it. But Farmiga finds the rules a bit too binding. The others are disappointed when she begins expressing her own ideas about religion. She sees her closest friend crippled by a brain tumor. And sometimes nobody is knocking at the door and she finds herself waiting in an empty house for a savior and comforter who isn't there or is late for the appointment.Her fellow congregationalists show human weaknesses. Quiet glances convey important messages between the worshipers. They lose their temper sometimes. They use foul words when they're depressed. But there's always someone at the door when they repent. There is an appalling honesty in the script. Farmiga's husband loses his sexual drive and she resorts to DIY satisfaction. "It takes me thirty seconds to do what you can't do even if you follow the steps in a manual," she snaps at her husband, who then tries to strangle her.Vera Farmiga's features are unforgettable -- that laterally compressed face, those vigilant blue eyes, the lack of a glabella, the twisted lips -- and her performance is unimpeachable. I hate to say it because it's trite but if you regard her full face and sort of squint she begins to resemble Boticelli's Venus. There isn't a weak actor in the cast. The conversations are all naturalistic, rather than actorish. Nor does anyone look or act like a stereotype. The songs of faith they sing are harmonious and moving. The casting department deserves a decoration for finding a girl, McKenzie Turner, who is precisely what we imagine Farmiga looked like as a teen ager.It's slow -- in the sense that nobody's head gets wrenched off -- but in its intelligence and its trust in the viewer, it's miles ahead of the meretricious crap being ground out in Hollywood today. Plaudits all around.

This story brings back memories, some good and some not so, of the 1970s when this story is set. My wife and I were involved in similar faith groups, in our case within the Catholic Church, where couples would go to prayer meetings and would support each other. Like in this story, some of them, usually the women, would ask to "receive the Spirit" and would "pray in tongues." The rest of us never really knew if they were really doing that as a manifestation of The Holy Spirit or were just convincing themselves of that. Sometimes all that brought people closer together, sometimes it pulled them apart.And that also is pretty much the theme of this movie. Vera Farmiga directs and also stars as the adult Corinne Walker . (We see two different, younger actresses playing Corinne at different stages, one is actually Vera's sister, 21 years younger than Vera, who does a great job as the teen Corrine.) As Corrine grows up, falls in love, becomes pregnant as a teen, gets married, gets entrenched in her own family, the religious aspect is there too, almost as another character. Corrine fervently wants it all, there is even a funny scene as she looks in the bathroom mirror, trying as hard as she can to "ignite" the spark of the Spirit within her so that she can pray in tongues, but it just doesn't come.There is another key issue, Bible fundamentalists adhere strictly to the admonition against having women in spiritual leadership positions where they may have occasion to instruct a man, and in a couple of scenes Corrine gets pulled aside by the pastor's wife who reminds her of that restriction after Corrine in impromptu moments gets up and speaks to the assembly. Corrine reacts with puzzlement, as she doesn't see why this should be wrong.In the end Corrine knows she is a good person, a good mother, but can no longer be a good wife as she finds herself not quite fitting into the mold of those around her. This movie does not "take sides", it does not try to say either point of view is wrong, but points out how religion can be a dividing force or a uniting force, depending on other circumstances.This is a somewhat slow movie, a character study without any great resolution, but very interesting and very well made.

This amazingly intelligent and touching film, directed by Vera Farminga, her first, in which she also stars, was among the best I have seen this year. Farminga, known for Down to the Bone, Up in the Air, and a half dozen other fine films truly exhibits the range of her talents as an actress. The film portrays Christianity in particular, and religious faith in general at its best and its worst, depending on ones point of view. One thinks of the Tennyson quote: "there lives more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds," I loved the scene of her outside the church building with the dogs, which took on an amazing symbolism in its context as she had just been warned by her Christian counselor that she would be cast out of heaven "to the dogs." The ending will surprise viewers. It is not predictable. The music is also powerful and authentic and carries the mood and spirit of the faith the film faithfully reflects.I think some of the negative reviews come from Christians who are offended at how this film portrays faith but there is no doubt that the kind of faith the film reflects is very alive and well, even though Christianity has many expressions around the world. This kind of charismatic evangelical fundamentalism is quite common outside the mainstream churches.