Higher Ground

Directed by Vera Farmiga

***

The directorial debut from actress Vera Farmiga “breaks crucial, sacred ground in American moviemaking,” said Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly. The onetime Oscar nominee stars as a woman who sincerely “gives herself over to Christianity” but also “chafes at” some of the teachings of her evangelical church. Evangelical moviegoers might not be ready to embrace the character’s struggles as their own, but they have to be grateful to encounter a film that for once “insists on the deep normality of true believers.” Farmiga’s character is seen turning devout after she and her husband nearly lose a child in a traffic accident, but she experiences faith as most people do—“as a constant push and pull,” said Christopher Kelly in The Miami Herald. The film’s leisurely plotting affords Farmiga room to capture all the nuances of that journey, and she delivers the best performance by a lead actress so far this year. Higher Ground meanders; sometimes it “can feel like a rambling memoir set to film,” said Claudia Puig in USA Today. Yet Farmiga “never seems to strike a false note in any role.”

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