Higher Ground

Catching up on Vera Farmiga's work is my current goal, and seeing as how she directed this one I felt more obligated to see it at this time. She's captivating and heart-breaking, infusing her subtle charm and many nuances to great effect. I don't think the film is all that great, particularly because I see quite a few holes in some of the character relationships and some of the writing arcs, but it's serviceable and Farmiga's directing reminds me somewhat of Sarah Polley's. I do think Farmiga is quite easily the best thing about it, both her directing and acting and for that it's worth a watch. Her younger sister also shows some acting talent.

With the proliferation of faith-based movies currently in theaters now ("Miracles from Heaven", "God's Not Dead 2", "The Young Messiah" among others) I thought it would be interesting to review one among the genre from 2011, "Higher Ground".

As a Christian, "Higher Ground" is kind of a tough call for me. While I identified with Corrine (Vera Farmiga in an ambitiously impressive directorial debut, as well) in her lifelong search for faith, both in God and in herself, I came away from this film conflicted.

We see Corrine being indoctrinated into a church cult while still an innocent young girl in the 1960's. We then watch as her extraordinary life unfolds before us, both personally and religiously, through the tumult and the joy, spanning the spirit-searching decade of the 1970's and on into the '80's. We bear witness as she transforms from the subservient female role commanded of her by the cult, to an emancipated and independent single mother immersed in a quest for self-discovery. As we do so, I couldn't help but feel that Corrine's road toward her own personal "higher ground", while undoubtedly still rigorous and fraught with challenge, would likely have been one of less disillusionment, discouragement and frustration had it not been born and nurtured of such distorted doctrine.

The sexual themes in "Higher Ground", which are quite frank and explicit, come off as blatantly prurient and inserted primarily for commercial appeal. These scenes register as out of place and really unnecessary to the telling of the story.

This film is clearly a labor of love and devotion for the ultra-talented Farmiga. Her role as Corrine is an exceptionally difficult one to deliver on with credibility and impact. Farmiga more than meets demand with her multi-layered and affecting performance. Her character's testimonial as the movie ends is at once moving, heart wrenching and hopeful. The words pour out from the depths of her soul. And they make it clear that Corrine's journey to reach "higher ground", while it sustains as a driving and passionate yearning, is just beginning.

Congratulations to Ms. Farmiga on such an excellent debut as a director.

As a completely involved in church evangelical Christian, it was exciting to see major elements of my lifestyle portrayed accurately on screen for a change. This film takes a kind and thoughtful middle road, not portraying the Christian life at extremes as it so often is- both negatively in many mainstream films and over the top positive in Christian films.

I wish I could send an email to all my church friends telling them to go see this film. But, as the film intimates, there are social and cultural taboos present within Christian churches. Some of the dialog and a few of the images would be so offensive to a small minority of my Christian friends that I would not dare to broadcast a recommendation but rather discreetly recommend it to those who would not be offended.

And a sizable segment of the really committed Christian population does not attend (at least in public) any R rated movie. This movie looks like it could have easily been brought to the screen as a PG-13 and reached a much wider audience.

And I hope this can reach as wide an audience as possible both for its portrayal of the Christian lifestyle and so we get to see more films from Vera Farmiga.

I am a Christian who have had some experience with the kind of community this movie portrays, and while watching this film, I think this is something for Christian community to watch and think about it. I don't think the film attack the faith or the religion, but it make us question whether all the singing, ceremony, bible reading, church activities,that we do everyday matter at all if there is no "Love and Honesty" in them. Doesn't the Lord tell us that nothing mater if it's not done with love? Doesn't the Bible tell us that you shouldn't come to my altar if you haven't reconcile with your brother? Doesn't God tell us not to judge others? Through her life, Corinne's growing and losing of faith reflect that even honest doubt is still better than pretending to have faith, better than faith with a narrow-mind, faith that is blind to see one's own fault,or faith that judges other people to go to Hell. How many times, after we sing and praise the Lord, and read the Bible, we go home and then hurt those people in our family? How many times we doubt but don't dare to admit to others because we want to be accepted in the community? I think watching this film and discussing about it with an open mind can help Christian community view themselves more honestly. If you watch the whole films, you will find that the moment that reflect "God" the most are the ones when the characters truly love,care,and accept one another, not the scene where praise song are sung or clever words are spoken. The most beautiful things in the movie was the good friendship between Corinne and Annika,the honest sharing of thought between Corinne and the Irish postman,and Corrine's courage to speak out about her doubt in front of her church for the last time. Those are the moment when God is reflected, not in ceremony, gospel singing, or church attending. And the scenes that make me feel a bit shamed of being a Christian because you know such mistakes do exist are: Wendy, Corinne's drug dealing sister, left her home after Corinne and her husband tried to preach to her in anger and force a faith upon her, the scene when the husband strangle Corinne's neck in the care after she tells him the truth how she feels, the scene when the counselor preached Hell fire to her and throw all the faults at her.

In the end, you will understand why Corinne choose to stay "out with the dogs." (That dog in front of the church is really cute, by the way.) The only sad thing about this film that disappoint me was that it doesn't show "true faith" and "how to go through doubt after accepting that it exists in your heart." In every Christian community, I believe there are those whose faith are real and strong, not just pretending or make-believe. There are those people whose hearts are so beautiful and know what the real teaching of Jesus is and how it should be applied in life, but are wise enough to know that forcing a faith upon a non-believer or judging a sinner to go to Hell is contracting to what God asks us to do. These people do exist in Christian communities and they can really be a good example of others, even to non-believers.

Recommend the film highly, but watch it with an open heart, please.

A lot of folks are posting to point out that HG is just plain boring. I say it's not.

What it is, is mundane. Farmiga set herself a difficult hurdle. She decided that she wanted to set this odyssey in the context of the life of, really, an ordinary woman. And so there's a notable wash of the quotidian over the whole movie; lots of pastels and a paucity of striking drama and color. Who buys a ticket to eat oatmeal? Well, there are a couple of redemptive factors, esthetically speaking.

One thing she does is place flashpoint moments of pretty intense drama, such as when the personality conflict with her husband culminates in violence; a real white-knuckler! And, that being merely a notable punctuation point in the action, a careful tracking shows the flick to be a kind of moderated exposition, ranging from the truly mundane to some pretty challenging stuff; and everything in between and every which way.

HG is an invitation to lovingly and thoughtfully consider those of our brethren who have addressed their existential crises by buying into this particular "out"; socializing themselves into fundamentalism.

Interestingly, the eye of the camera viewing this epic could be the fairly dispassionate eye of a deistic god: For example, I found the scene where our heroine meets with a "prophetic" councilor particularly challenging. It requires that we get off our duffs, roll up our sleeves, and personally address the issue: From whence do persons who promote themselves as social arbiters derive their credentials? Does his firm, unblinking claim to divine calling overrule the intuitions of women who simply feel unfulfilled? HG is, I think, carefully directed to leave you to answer this, and other questions, in the tabernacle of your own heart. This will naturally put off some moviegoers who never really felt that this was the purpose of film.

I'm not kidding: I'm fully aware that this style of filmmaking puts off plenty of people. Farmiga didn't make this film to be popular: She made it to be honest with herself.

And perhaps that's the foundation point of the best recommendation for this flick: How often do you get to see films like that?