Vera Farmiga directs and stars in Higher Ground, a story of a quest for religious relevance based on Carolyn S. Briggs’ memoir, “This Dark World.” Critics who saw it at Sundance were impressed.
No one should really be surprised that Vera Farmiga brings the same meticulous craftsmanship and passion for truth found in her extraordinary acting to her debut as a director in “Higher Ground.”
The film is a deft, graceful and often poignant story of a woman’s quest to find her own identity and a spiritual sanctuary that will give her life hope and meaning. Kirk Honeykutt,
The films is at times funny, romantic, tender and heart-breaking as it embraces all the quirks and struggles in the lives of its characters. The non-judgmental approach adapted by Farmiga allows all the actors to maintain the integrity of their characters without exaggeration or caricature. THR
Owen Gleiberman at EW rightly cites the film as rarity, reminding us that “Evangelicals are people too.”
I don’t agree with most of the attacks on Hollywood by Christian fundamentalists, but there’s one criticism — and it’s a major one — that they’re absolutely right about: When it comes to portraying people of faith, Hollywood is worse than disrespectful — it’s shamefully disinterested. When a comedy like Saved, much as I’m a fan of it, passes for a vital vision of American Christian experience, you know that there’s something missing in our movie culture. (Robert Duvall’s The Apostle is a great film, but it’s about as far from the lives of everyday Christians as you can get.)
Stepping up to the plate of righteousness — at liberal secular Sundance, no less — is the vibrant actress Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air, Down to the Bone), who has now become a filmmaker. She directed and stars in Higher Ground, a rich, sprawling, uplifting, disquieting, at once demystifying and mysterious drama about the life and love and heartbreak and faith of one woman in America who’s an evangelical Christian.