Higher Ground

 

3 1/2 Stars

We envy the will and passion of others; we're only human. In the fine, searching, new independent film "Higher Ground," director and star Vera Farmiga plays Corinne, a member of a fervent evangelical Christian church somewhere in the Midwest.

It's not the key relationship in the film -- that would be the one between Corinne's own selves, looking for resolution -- but Corinne's most significant friendship is with Annika, the charismatic earth-mother played by Dagmara Dominczyk.

With Annika, Corinne can talk about nearly everything, including the lack of physical passion that has slowly corroded Corinne's marriage from the inside. Annika appears to have it all: a loving relationship with her Lord, a deeply sexual one with her husband, a warm and easy way of embracing family and friends.

In the years after marrying her high school boyfriend, with whom she found God but then found it wasn't enough, Corinne has lived an honest but thwarted life -- a series of attempts, strivings, at fulfillment. Why won't He solve her frustrations?

As Corinne confronts the limitations of her life and then redefines her life completely, "Higher Ground," set in what appears to be the 1970s and '80s, avoids preaching to any choir or settling for easy point-scoring. In the past, Farmiga has been uneven and often indistinct as an actress, especially in genre pictures such as "Orphan" or as the zoned-out shrink in "The Departed." (She was excellent, however, in the more recent "Up in the Air," for which she was Oscar-nominated, and in "Source Code.") In "Higher Ground," surrounded by a first-rate ensemble including stage veterans Norbert Leo Butz (as Pastor Bill) and "Winter's Bone" Oscar nominee John Hawkes (as Corinne's fond but alcoholic father), Farmiga has developed a project one might describe as roomy. Corinne's on a mission, but its particulars elude her, which makes Corinne's path an unpredictable and rewarding one.

"Higher Ground" comes from Carolyn S. Briggs' superb 2002 memoir "This Dark World," adapted by Briggs and Tim Metcalfe. This is no slavish, high-fidelity screenplay. The retitled film goes its own way, mostly for the better. Three actresses share the role of Corinne; McKenzie Turner plays her as a young girl, growing up with a popular, nervier sister and inside a family made worse by her father's drinking. Farmiga's younger sister, Taissa, plays Corinne as a teenager, when the character based loosely on Briggs falls in love with a high school boy in a band. They have a child. They marry. In Briggs' book, we're told this: "Instead of coming to terms with my sexuality at the age of 17, I closed it down. I was done with the experimenting. I had made my sole discovery." Farmiga's film doesn't state things directly, but we sense what is happening to Corinne, and how some turn to fundamentalism for complex and interconnected reasons.

Shot on hazy, summery digital video by cinematographer Michael McDonough ("Winter's Bone"), "Higher Ground" glides and takes time to explore. In the best way it feels very '70s: It's about a relatable lost soul finding herself. The movie has its reductive bits and clunky aspects. There are a few moments when other characters serve little purpose other than blunt, two-dimensional opposition. Farmiga probably gives herself one too many yearning reaction shots. But, again in the best sense, this feels like a home movie, made by people of genuine (yet not rigid) spiritual belief. The truest scenes in "Higher Ground" don't even hit God directly, so to speak. We experience Corinne's life and times and her specific circumstances as scenes from a marriage, dispatches from a seeker on a quest.

What is she seeking, besides a way to breathe more deeply every moment? If Corinne knew the answer to that one, she wouldn't go questing in the first place.

 

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"Higher Ground" Movie Trailer

 

MPAA rating: R (for some language and sexual content).

Running time: 1:49.

Cast: Vera Farmiga (Corinne); Norbert Leo Butz (Pastor Bill); Dagmara Dominczyk (Annika); John Hawkes (CW Walker); Bill Irwin (Pastor Bud); Donna Murphy (Kathleen); Taissa Farmiga (young Corinne).

Credits: Directed by Vera Farmiga; written by Carolyn S. Briggs and Tim Metcalfe, based on Briggs' memoir "This Dark World"; produced by Carly Hugo, Claude Dal Farra, Matt Parker, Renn Hawkey and Jon Rubinstein. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

 

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