Rated R for some language and sexual content
Cast: Joshua Leonard, Norbert Leo Butz, Michael Chernus, Vera Farmiga, McKenzie Turner, Donna Murphy, John Hawkes
Director: Vera Farmiga
Corinne so desperately wants to believe.
Contrary to how it may be perceived, "Higher Ground" does not hang religion from a meat hook and begin hurling punches. That's not its goal. The story is of a devout Christian who turned to Spirituality in a time of great need, loves her Faith, adores her children, embraces the fellow members of her congregation, but slowly begins to question the meaning of certain events--both past and present--as an oddly inconsolable emptiness begins to find its way into her soul as the years pass. It's no one's fault, and she knows that. Just an inexplicably persistent void. ("I try inviting God in," she confesses at a service. "I leave the porch light on, but sometimes He just doesn't show up.")
There have been some who have denounced the film as an assault against organized religion. I disagree, and if you've seen the movie and still believe this to be true, ask yourself one question... are the personal reservations Corinne has at the end really so out-of-whack and inconceivable that even the hardest core follower couldn't, at one time or another, have felt something similar? If you're answer is still yes, then I question... if not your Faith, then your honesty with yourself.
True, the movie does contain a few hardcore believers that do fit a certain stereotype, yet even in those instances, the film doesn't cut them down like bowling pins in some misguided attempt at secular purgation. Consider a scene late in the film, when Corinne speaks to the congregation. A preacher, who believes women aren't learned enough to address the fellow members in speech, attempts--as he's done countless times before--to interrupt her. She stands her ground, but does so while showing the misguided evangelist a surprising amount of respect.
Corinne is played by Vera Farmiga, who also directed. She's working from a script by Tim Metcalfe ("Kalifornia") and Carolyn S. Briggs, whose memoir "This Dark World" is the source material upon which the film is based. I don't believe Farmiga's decision to make this her directorial debut is bred from personal spiritual ambivalence; more from her well-documented frustration with the plethora of mundane, unsubstantial, and marginalized roles for women in mainstream Hollywood. (Her disgust was the topic of a New York Times cover story in 2006, where she confessed to setting the offending scripts aflame.)
What I imagine appealed to Farmiga was the freedom of a lead female character to question things that don't have answers and pursue avenues of existence that may not lead to happy endings. The story has an open-ended conclusion filled with doubt, but forever yoked with doubt is the existence of hope--however small--and the possibility of happiness. The story spans decades, and follows Corinne as she matures, where we see that doubt has always played a role in her life and always will. From her teenage romance with a budding musician (played as a teen by Boyd Holbrook and later by Joshua Leonard, far removed from his "Blair Witch" days) to their wedding upon getting pregnant, to their impulse decision to surrender to the highest Spiritual ideals following a near-death bus accident, and into Corinne's day-to-day marital existence as she struggles with being subservient and embracing the "reason" behind certain tragic events that have recently befallen her and her loved ones. She detests her doubts, but there is a subconscious part of her that is aware that those reservations are too important to ignore; they've led her to this point and pondering their meaning--no matter how painful--is the only way forward.
I am not agnostic, but I do reject fundamentalist Christianity. (Not the Christianity part; the fundamentalist portion.) Nothing in life is meant to stay in its rudimentary incarnation. Everything is evolutionary in nature, though fire and brimstone fundamentalists would have me killed for uttering such a sentiment. (I'm trusting here that objectors to evolution in any form don't still nourish themselves by sucking breast milk from their mothers' teat.) When hardcore Christians arrive at my doorstep asking to speak to me about Jesus, I send them away immediately. Not because I despise them, but because my days are hectic enough already, and my God-given time management skills simply will not afford it.
But my rangebound spiritual credence is neither here nor there. The movie is about one woman's crisis of Faith, and that alone is not an attack on religion. So what do we take away from a film about doubt? I suppose that doubt is never wrong... in any capacity. And as it pertains to Spirituality... for my money, those with the greatest doubts also harbor the greatest conviction. I, like everyone, have experienced doubt and witnessed loved ones wading through their own quagmire of spiritual dubiety. I have no answers for their pain, but I'm fortunate to realize that answers aren't mine to give. I see both their anguish and their Spiritual resolve, and love them all the more for it. I am quite blessed.
* * * 1/2 out of * * * * stars
Contrary to how it may be perceived, "Higher Ground" does not hang religion from a meat hook and begin hurling punches. That's not its goal. The story is of a devout Christian who turned to Spirituality in a time of great need, loves her Faith, adores her children, embraces the fellow members of her congregation, but slowly begins to question the meaning of certain events--both past and present--as an oddly inconsolable emptiness begins to find its way into her soul as the years pass. It's no one's fault, and she knows that. Just an inexplicably persistent void. ("I try inviting God in," she confesses at a service. "I leave the porch light on, but sometimes He just doesn't show up.")
There have been some who have denounced the film as an assault against organized religion. I disagree, and if you've seen the movie and still believe this to be true, ask yourself one question... are the personal reservations Corinne has at the end really so out-of-whack and inconceivable that even the hardest core follower couldn't, at one time or another, have felt something similar? If you're answer is still yes, then I question... if not your Faith, then your honesty with yourself.
True, the movie does contain a few hardcore believers that do fit a certain stereotype, yet even in those instances, the film doesn't cut them down like bowling pins in some misguided attempt at secular purgation. Consider a scene late in the film, when Corinne speaks to the congregation. A preacher, who believes women aren't learned enough to address the fellow members in speech, attempts--as he's done countless times before--to interrupt her. She stands her ground, but does so while showing the misguided evangelist a surprising amount of respect.
Corinne is played by Vera Farmiga, who also directed. She's working from a script by Tim Metcalfe ("Kalifornia") and Carolyn S. Briggs, whose memoir "This Dark World" is the source material upon which the film is based. I don't believe Farmiga's decision to make this her directorial debut is bred from personal spiritual ambivalence; more from her well-documented frustration with the plethora of mundane, unsubstantial, and marginalized roles for women in mainstream Hollywood. (Her disgust was the topic of a New York Times cover story in 2006, where she confessed to setting the offending scripts aflame.)
What I imagine appealed to Farmiga was the freedom of a lead female character to question things that don't have answers and pursue avenues of existence that may not lead to happy endings. The story has an open-ended conclusion filled with doubt, but forever yoked with doubt is the existence of hope--however small--and the possibility of happiness. The story spans decades, and follows Corinne as she matures, where we see that doubt has always played a role in her life and always will. From her teenage romance with a budding musician (played as a teen by Boyd Holbrook and later by Joshua Leonard, far removed from his "Blair Witch" days) to their wedding upon getting pregnant, to their impulse decision to surrender to the highest Spiritual ideals following a near-death bus accident, and into Corinne's day-to-day marital existence as she struggles with being subservient and embracing the "reason" behind certain tragic events that have recently befallen her and her loved ones. She detests her doubts, but there is a subconscious part of her that is aware that those reservations are too important to ignore; they've led her to this point and pondering their meaning--no matter how painful--is the only way forward.
I am not agnostic, but I do reject fundamentalist Christianity. (Not the Christianity part; the fundamentalist portion.) Nothing in life is meant to stay in its rudimentary incarnation. Everything is evolutionary in nature, though fire and brimstone fundamentalists would have me killed for uttering such a sentiment. (I'm trusting here that objectors to evolution in any form don't still nourish themselves by sucking breast milk from their mothers' teat.) When hardcore Christians arrive at my doorstep asking to speak to me about Jesus, I send them away immediately. Not because I despise them, but because my days are hectic enough already, and my God-given time management skills simply will not afford it.
But my rangebound spiritual credence is neither here nor there. The movie is about one woman's crisis of Faith, and that alone is not an attack on religion. So what do we take away from a film about doubt? I suppose that doubt is never wrong... in any capacity. And as it pertains to Spirituality... for my money, those with the greatest doubts also harbor the greatest conviction. I, like everyone, have experienced doubt and witnessed loved ones wading through their own quagmire of spiritual dubiety. I have no answers for their pain, but I'm fortunate to realize that answers aren't mine to give. I see both their anguish and their Spiritual resolve, and love them all the more for it. I am quite blessed.
* * * 1/2 out of * * * * stars
