Higher Ground

R

Released Aug 26, 2011

1h 54m

Drama

List

82%

92 Reviews

Tomatometer

62%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

A fundamentalist's (Vera Farmiga) lifelong struggle with tenets of her church comes to a head in the wake of a tragedy involving her best friend (Dagmara Dominczyk).

Read More

Read Less

Watch on Fandango at Home

Premiered Apr 01

Buy Now

Fandango at Home

Prime Video

Apple TV

Rent Higher Ground on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

Critics Consensus

With Higher Ground, star and debuting director Vera Farmiga takes viewers on a challenging spiritual journey whose missteps are easily overcome by its many rich rewards.

Read Critics Reviews

Audience Member

The bible bashing element and singing got on my nerves all the time. No wonder these people are viewed are weirdo's. I am sure you can have faith without singing about God every two minutes. Vera Farmiga was fabulous in this movie though. I felt the movie lost something when Dagmara character Annika became brain damaged. It told an interesting story but as a non religious person I couldn't relate. Still takes all kinds of movies.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

01/16/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Vera Farmiga directed and stars in this sincere but slow-moving drama.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

Full Review

Audience Member

2011 featured a number of stellar directorial debuts. I've sung the praises of Sean Durkin's masterful Martha Marcy May Marlene for months now, but J.C. Chandor's Margin Call, Joe Cornish's Attack the Block, and John Michael McDonagh's The Guard were all varying degrees of intriguing and entertaining. Another of last year's directorial debuts that I've been curious about for a while is Vera Farmiga's Higher Ground. Farmiga, of course, is a fine actress, and for her first behind-the-camera outing, she chose a character study about a woman grappling with issues of faith within an evangelical community. Would if I could say it was better than average, but somewhere in a sea of half-hearted statements on religion and empowerment, the story gets lost, and worse, we stop caring. Farmiga also stars in the film. She plays our main character, Corinne, a middle-aged mother of three who has for decades wrestled internally with her thoughts on religion and God. Born into the Church, Corinne (played as a high school girl by Farmiga's daughter, Taissa) opens up to God during her childhood, while most of her fellow classmates stay silent. But when her parents begin fighting and she starts seeing a boy, her faith is put on hold. It's only after she gives birth to her first daughter with high school rocker boyfriend Ethan (Boyd Holbrook as a high schooler, Joshua Leonard as an adult) that they find God once again. They nearly lose their child in a bus accident, so they decide to spend the rest of their lives praising and thanking God for the miracle of life. They join a tightly knit community of fellow evangelical Christians, where women are secondary to men, and your fellow man is secondary to God. It's there that Corinne begins to have another crisis of faith as she sees the Holy Spirit in all those around her but can't find it within herself. With a plot description like that, it must seem as if much of Higher Ground involves that which is internalized. It's true, but there's also a great deal of interpersonal conflict. Corinne finds herself an accidental lightning rod of criticism. She doesn't wait her turn to speak like so many of the other women around her, and she's OK not wearing a dress that buttons all the way up to her neck. This is part of the reason she struggles to fit in, and in many ways, the negative things her friends and neighbors say about her are true. She is different, she might not belong, and God might not be as present in her as He is in them (if that's the sort of thing you believe). Farmiga is fine in front of the camera. This is far from her best performance (The Departed and Up in the Air were much better showcases for her talents), but she's solid. Everyone around her plays a caricature of sorts, so I can't say I was enamored with the film's acting. And directorially, Farmiga is generally straightforward, but she had a hard time keeping her camera still-inexplicably opting for these very slow pans across, which I didn't think served any purpose. I'd say the jury is still out on Farmiga as a director. She didn't really show me much with this film, but the problems I had with it dealt more with the story itself than the way she visually expresses it. Ultimately, this is a film I just couldn't connect with. I don't doubt there are those who will find a great deal to admire and discuss, but I consistently felt at a distance from it, and it didn't do enough to help me bridge that distance. http://www.johnlikesmovies.com/higher-ground-review/

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/10/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Smart film about the conflict that a woman finds concerning her faith and her belonging to a some kind of extremist christian church. Some religious meetings and songs could be boring but are needed to show the bigotry of the church leaders against the disonant opinions.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/07/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The movie was interesting in the beginning but then I became confused and lost... So there was some disappointment in the end...

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/13/23

Full Review

Frances H

Interesting study of a faith that starts to flag in the face of maturity and intelligence.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

11/04/14

Full Review

Read all reviews

Post a rating

Vera Farmiga

Director

Vera Farmiga

Corinne

Joshua Leonard

Ethan

John Hawkes

CW

Dagmara Domińczyk

Annika

Norbert Leo Butz

Bill

Show Less Cast & Crew

Show More Cast & Crew

75%

49%

Margaret

9%

36%

Answers to Nothing

45%

25%

Morning

89%

69%

You Will Be My Son

55%

61%

Hesher

Discover more movies and TV shows.

View More

Critics Consensus: Colombiana Goes Way Over The Top

View more photos

Candice Frederick

Reel Talk Online

It rather presents a quaint coming-of-faith tale that's not especially captivating to watch.

Rated: C

Sep 8, 2017

Full Review

Sara Michelle Fetters

MovieFreak.com

Yet there is something about the film, something about the way it is constructed, about what it is saying, that has struck some sort of interior chord with me, and as such I've been having plenty of trouble compiling my thoughts into one.

Rated: 3/4

Jan 27, 2012

Full Review

Alonso Duralde

What the Flick?!

Vera Farmiga proves herself to be, right out of the box, a terrific director.

Oct 20, 2011

Full Review

Richard Propes

TheIndependentCritic.com

In refusing to take sides, Higher Ground really allows the story to be about the fullness of Corinne's faith journey.

Rated: 3.5/4.0

Sep 10, 2020

Full Review

David Lamble

Bay Area Reporter

...fueled by an emotive ensemble, featuring Farmiga as a devout woman who resists the patriarchal constraints of her faith. It's an offbeat peek into how a rock n roll generation copes with Jesus...

Jun 10, 2020

Full Review

Amie Simon

Three Imaginary Girls

One of those quiet, thoughtful Indies that comes along every once in awhile-leaving an impression.

Mar 4, 2019

Full Review

Read all reviews

Synopsis

A fundamentalist's (Vera Farmiga) lifelong struggle with tenets of her church comes to a head in the wake of a tragedy involving her best friend (Dagmara Dominczyk).

Director: Vera Farmiga
Producer: Jonathan Burkhart, Brice Dal Farra, Lauren Munsch
Screenwriter: Carolyn Briggs, Tim Metcalfe
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Production Co: BCDF Pictures
Rating: R (Some Language|Sexual Content)
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Aug 26, 2011, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 14, 2014
Box Office (Gross USA): $841.2K
Runtime: 1h 54m

Most Popular at Home Now