Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Robert J. Maxwell You don't often see stories like this. Usually, these small church groups, often called "cults", contain three types of people: fanatical believers, hypocrites, and victims.Not here. There aren't any villains and there aren't any dopes, just ordinary human beings trying to find some sort of guidance in life through the conduit of religious beliefs.Belonging to this group -- or any other solidary group -- involves conformity. You're accepted and loved as long as you embrace the limits. The same holds for the U. S. Marine Corps. All of us find comfort in a warm and responsive community, and some of us are willing to sacrifice personal freedom for it.The group here is not stupid or extreme. They believe that Jesus is with all of us; all we have to do is accept his guidance. He's knocking on the door and we should let him in.The heroine, Vera Farmiga, who was also the director, goes through a troubled youth until an auto accident converts both her and her rock musician husband. Hubby can hack it. But Farmiga finds the rules a bit too binding. The others are disappointed when she begins expressing her own ideas about religion. She sees her closest friend crippled by a brain tumor. And sometimes nobody is knocking at the door and she finds herself waiting in an empty house for a savior and comforter who isn't there or is late for the appointment.Her fellow congregationalists show human weaknesses. Quiet glances convey important messages between the worshipers. They lose their temper sometimes. They use foul words when they're depressed. But there's always someone at the door when they repent. There is an appalling honesty in the script. Farmiga's husband loses his sexual drive and she resorts to DIY satisfaction. "It takes me thirty seconds to do what you can't do even if you follow the steps in a manual," she snaps at her husband, who then tries to strangle her.Vera Farmiga's features are unforgettable -- that laterally compressed face, those vigilant blue eyes, the lack of a glabella, the twisted lips -- and her performance is unimpeachable. I hate to say it because it's trite but if you regard her full face and sort of squint she begins to resemble Boticelli's Venus. There isn't a weak actor in the cast. The conversations are all naturalistic, rather than actorish. Nor does anyone look or act like a stereotype. The songs of faith they sing are harmonious and moving. The casting department deserves a decoration for finding a girl, McKenzie Turner, who is precisely what we imagine Farmiga looked like as a teen ager.It's slow -- in the sense that nobody's head gets wrenched off -- but in its intelligence and its trust in the viewer, it's miles ahead of the meretricious crap being ground out in Hollywood today. Plaudits all around.

eliotbay Sort of unaware of this movie & glad I watched it. I will highly recommend others from my old Church family check it out. Personally found the story very interesting, having grown up in the 60-70s, attending a smaller suburban Presbyterian church. I think we were lucky our youth group visited various other denominations & the LDS, too. Once, at an Evangelical church we listened while members stood up & gave "Testimonials" of their faith. One thing I learned is not all churches had great stained glass windows, pipe organs, choir directors & some sort of so-called "Order of Worship". Anyway, have always thought the work of Vera F. was very good even in that terrible Boston cop flick w/ Matt Damon, Martin Sheen & old Jack Nic. Now, after viewing Higher Ground, even more impressed with her talent & acting range. Then reading the credits & learning this film was her directorial debut - WOW, great job!

rzajac A lot of folks are posting to point out that HG is just plain boring. I say it's not.What it is, is mundane. Farmiga set herself a difficult hurdle. She decided that she wanted to set this odyssey in the context of the life of, really, an ordinary woman. And so there's a notable wash of the quotidian over the whole movie; lots of pastels and a paucity of striking drama and color. Who buys a ticket to eat oatmeal? Well, there are a couple of redemptive factors, esthetically speaking.One thing she does is place flashpoint moments of pretty intense drama, such as when the personality conflict with her husband culminates in violence; a real white-knuckler! And, that being merely a notable punctuation point in the action, a careful tracking shows the flick to be a kind of moderated exposition, ranging from the truly mundane to some pretty challenging stuff; and everything in between and every which way.HG is an invitation to lovingly and thoughtfully consider those of our brethren who have addressed their existential crises by buying into this particular "out"; socializing themselves into fundamentalism.Interestingly, the eye of the camera viewing this epic could be the fairly dispassionate eye of a deistic god: For example, I found the scene where our heroine meets with a "prophetic" councilor particularly challenging. It requires that we get off our duffs, roll up our sleeves, and personally address the issue: From whence do persons who promote themselves as social arbiters derive their credentials? Does his firm, unblinking claim to divine calling overrule the intuitions of women who simply feel unfulfilled? HG is, I think, carefully directed to leave you to answer this, and other questions, in the tabernacle of your own heart. This will naturally put off some moviegoers who never really felt that this was the purpose of film.I'm not kidding: I'm fully aware that this style of filmmaking puts off plenty of people. Farmiga didn't make this film to be popular: She made it to be honest with herself.And perhaps that's the foundation point of the best recommendation for this flick: How often do you get to see films like that?

cinemaniac2002 I saw "Higher Ground" with quite a stoic, serious audience at the Landmark Cinema in Chicago. So much so that I felt I needed to restrain my impulse to laugh most of the time. I can only imagine the uproarious sounds that are going on during screenings of this film in Los Angeles,where people rarely hold back their levity. It appears as though the pious subject matter of this film is enough to make quite a few folks just a little too uncomfortable to let out too many guffaws. It isn't often, after all, that religion is covered easily in the media in any case. Unless there is an obvious comic connection, many people simply think it is rude to laugh at all about religion - mostly because you can never be sure exactly what people's religious beliefs may be. Therein lies the huge risk of offending someone. Based upon my torturous years at the hands of Catholic nuns in a boarding school near Chicago, I can attest to the fact that I was rarely laughing. In fact, neither was anyone else at that facility during the explosive 1960s. Most of the time, I was just trying to stay on the good side of those nuns, which, for a person like me, was a certain failure. Needless to say, I bore both emotional and physical scars for many years, as the result of having a precocious nature, among other reasons. Like the fact that I was not officially a Catholic and came from a single-mothered household. My mother finally succumbed to my peer pressure at age 7 and allowed me to become baptized. That First Communion dress was going to be mine, no matter what. I was only at the school in the first place, because my mother desperately needed what she felt was trustworthy child care, while she worked nights. Little did she know what was really going on in that place. But that's entirely another story altogether. This personal story is being told to help demonstrate how easy it is to jump on board with just about any religion you're exposed or subjected to - particularly when you are of vulnerable age and circumstance. Even when you may know better or are not treated very well. First time director, Vera Farmiga, is an actress whose name that not many people may not know of, despite her work in major, well-known films like "The Departed," "Source Code," and "Up in the Air," for which she garnered an Academy Award nomination. Farmiga, also in the lead role, brings the same level of meticulousness to this film both as an actor and director - just as she did in her many other extraordinary film roles. It would be easy to get lost in a sort of over the top display in a film such as this, given its religious subject matter. Instead, Farmiga's graceful and truthful manner effortlessly displays the poignant journey of a woman struggling to come into her own identity, while exploring the most personal spiritual quest for a life of authenticity. Taken from born-again Christian Carolyn S. Briggs' memoir, the 60s story follows her character, Corinne, from a home of parental discord, which forms the catalyst toward teenage love which results in pregnancy and a shotgun wedding. Her world understandably becomes focused on wife and mother-hood, usurping her dreams of education and a writing career. When a near-fatal tragedy is averted, her husband asserts the circumstance as divine intervention. She then unquestionably accepts her new fate as part of a fundamentalist religious compound. The gorgeous New York Hudson River Valley location demonstrates how seductive an environment can be in convincing people to joint an earnest spiritual community. As a result of this sequestered life, she learns nothing of the newly developed feministic views of the times. She adapts to her surroundings, learning to people-please as much as possible. Her preoccupation with her three young children seems, much of the time, to satisfactorily suffice.Joshua Leonard as her loving husband, Ethan, never seems to understand just how his wife may have been drawn into, rather than choosing her life's direction herself. She was never really given an option to choose the church and spiritual direction that their family's life became built around.While there is quite a bit of hilarity in the film (depending upon your particular sense of humor) - the writers, actors and Farmiga's directing never sinks into mockery, as many American films tend to do with this subject. Rather than make light of the characters and their choices, the humor is found more appropriately in the various situations themselves. Her spiritual crisis is dealt with honesty and patience, while being conveyed in a respectful manner. This could be due, in part, to an admission she made about her own life: "My dad is someone who feels the breath of God on his face. He's tapping into something that I have yet to tap into - and yearn to." As she seeks true contentment, she finds that answers aren't as clear as they appear to be for others in the sect. Which brings to light many questions about blind faith, true believers and the questions that other spiritual followers face or even choose not to explore at all, in many denominations. "You've got fundamentalism, and you've got relativism. I wanted to push both ways and try to come at it from a middle ground," Farmiga has been quoted as saying with regard to "Higher Ground." It's apparent in this insightful, gentle, yet powerful film, that she did indeed, reach that goal.