Drama. R. 1 hour, 49 minutes. At the Esquire.
Vera Farmiga’s debut as a film director tells the story of a woman’s spiritual life from her teen years through the early dawn of middle age, a journey in which she becomes a believer and associates with believers, but keeps listening for the voice of God and hearing nothing.
“Higher Ground” shines a light on an aspect of the human experience not often explored on-screen, and contains a number of notable performances — not the least of which is Farmiga in the central role. It was a hit at Sundance and deserves to have been for the above reasons.
The movie has also been praised for its balanced presentation of the religious life. Yet the point of view of the film is skewed, just by virtue of the story, which is adapted from “This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost,” Carolyn S. Briggs’ memoir of her path into and ultimately out of evangelical Christianity.
Farmiga treats the religious life with a respect uncommon in recent Hollywood film. The problem is that the story, as constituted, is of necessity against organized religion, but Farmiga, as director, pretends that it’s ambiguous. So you get a movie slightly at cross-purposes with itself.
Everyone Corinne (Farmiga) meets acts like a smiling zombie, simmering with suppressed or unacknowledged hostility. The only one vital, life-embracing exception comes in the form of Corinne’s best friend (Dagmara Dominczyk), and even that character’s arc doesn’t reinforce the value of faith.
Against this background, Corinne’s spiritual questioning can’t help but seem either a manifestation of her honesty (the others are faking it) or her intelligence (the others are deluded).
Farmiga may be trying to paint a neutral portrait, but the script is anything but neutral, and she probably would have been better off embracing the film’s contents rather than shying away from it. Still, it’s a movie of subtle shifts and unspoken transactions and rewards attention.
