Higher Ground (2011)

not as good as all the hype

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Corinne Walker was 'saved' at her church as a child. As a teenager (Taissa Farmiga), she dates musician Ethan Miller while her parents split apart. Corinne marries Ethan and have daughter Abigail. They travel with the band on a bus which crashed. Ethan barely saves Abigail reviving the family's religious beliefs. As adults, Corinne (Vera Farmiga) and Ethan with their children Abigail and Lilly live in a religious community. Corinne's sister Wendy arrives to stay but she's holding a package of cocaine. Later, Corinne gets pregnant, has sex dreams about her best friend Annika, and struggles with her religious faith.Vera Farmiga is an amazing actress. This is her directing debut. She is unable to strip this life-long story down into a tighter and more concentrated drama. It saunters from one life event to another. I would probably skip the childhood story and start with the bus crash. That way, the movie can start right at the community. I simply have a tough time staying with Corinne as her life skips by. I wonder if this material would work better as a TV series.

This is a movie for grownups. It has grownup themes and situations, some mature language, and it's very honest about the struggles a LOT of Christians go through--and about some of the hypocrisy that sincere Christians have to face in their churches. It is not an anti-Christian movie, it's an anti-bull--- movie. If you have ever felt like the people around you in church were fake, or not quite getting it, or like their religious ideas and traditions were getting in the way of God, you will probably find this movie worthwhile. If you don't understand what makes Christians tick, or why intelligent people keep trying to pray to God in Jesus' name, you might get a clue from this movie, which ends on a strong note of faith. If your 'Christianity' is rigid and brittle, this honest little movie will probably make you mad pretty quickly. This is a low budget movie, and it shows a little--that's why I only gave it an 8, it's technically a little weak, and some scenes could have used a few more takes. But it gives a very heartfelt and true picture of life inside a lot of evangelical and pentecostal churches, and of the struggles a lot of people go through in trying to live for God.

I can understand why many people will fail to see Farmiga's genius in creating this gem. It is a slow, thoughtful movie. The fact that Corinne sometimes seems to lack emotion is part of the point. She is repressed in every way, yet at times the true woman's spirit shines through - when laughing with her children, for example - and this contrast shows the depth of Farmiga's acting ability as well as her admirable restraint and daring as a director. To honestly portray a repression that is as much internally as it is externally driven - this is a fine line, and one that Farmiga walks with delicacy.Watching Higher Ground was a deeply personal experience for me. Corinne's story could be mine in so many ways. From the music (which I knew word-for-word), to the nearly word-perfect alter calls for children (while every head is bowed and every eye is closed), to Corinne's moments of recognition (inside with you, or outside with the dogs), everything felt intensely real and honest. People who see this movie as attacking Christianity are probably not able to see their own worlds with any spirit of truth, as - for me, anyway - everything about Corinne's experiences in her church was painted accurately and with a painful degree of realism.I watched this movie with my husband, who was raised without any religion and has a hard time understanding what it was like for me to walk away from my whole life, my whole world. This movie helped me express to him that pain, and that freedom. Like Corinne, I simply couldn't pretend anymore.

When Vera Farmiga selected "Higher Ground" to direct, she did not select an easy subject or one that would typically draw much box office. For most of the movie, you are in church or praying with other Christians and immersed in the evangelical world.Hollywood,in particular, does not do sincere exploration of devoutly religious material, in this kind of depth. Devout Christians are more often portrayed as mentally unbalanced, dangerous or ignorant. For the first third of the movie, I waited for the dark turn of the story to unveil black hearts in the congregation. The soundtrack is all religious, White gospel music, with mostly acoustic instruments. We are introduced to sectarian religious people who have devoted their lives to seeking a connection to God through Jesus. This is not a cynical movie, and there are no snarky undercurrents. I was prepared to dislike this film when it was clear that we are being invited into the world of a small born-again congregation. They speak the language of the intensely religious, and they find Biblical references to explain the events in their lives.Rather than being put off by it, it worked for me. Yes, there were flaws in the story-telling, and there weren't a lot of production values, but this film is about living life on a higher ground. It is too slow for most audiences, and there is no action and not much suspense. The female protagonist seeks contact with her savior in almost every scene. She is not only a servant of her God, but she is reminded that women do not teach or preach to men in her community.She has many questions about her life and her faith, and the film is about how she addresses her spiritual crisis. There aren't any bad people in this film. Even the people I didn't particularly like were very decent sorts of people. Farmiga is the protagonist who becomes born-again as a child, and, as she matures, she finds a gap between what she believes to be true and what she is hearing from the pulpit and her fellow travelers. She is unsatisfied with platitudes and the preaching rings hollow when applied to her life. Her journey is very personal, and, in the end, she follows the truth in her heart. This film does not indict the beliefs of others, and I did not find it to be anti-religious. All spiritual journeys are intensely personal. One must find one's own path to higher ground.This film takes some time to get to you; because it is sincere and essentially a spiritual journey. It will not please everyone, but it might be a gem for those who give it a chance.