Stylish but barely mediocre overall

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Corinne Walker was 'saved' at her church as a child. As a teenager (Taissa Farmiga), she dates musician Ethan Miller while her parents split apart. Corinne marries Ethan and have daughter Abigail. They travel with the band on a bus which crashed. Ethan barely saves Abigail reviving the family's religious beliefs. As adults, Corinne (Vera Farmiga) and Ethan with their children Abigail and Lilly live in a religious community. Corinne's sister Wendy arrives to stay but she's holding a package of cocaine. Later, Corinne gets pregnant, has sex dreams about her best friend Annika, and struggles with her religious faith.Vera Farmiga is an amazing actress. This is her directing debut. She is unable to strip this life-long story down into a tighter and more concentrated drama. It saunters from one life event to another. I would probably skip the childhood story and start with the bus crash. That way, the movie can start right at the community. I simply have a tough time staying with Corinne as her life skips by. I wonder if this material would work better as a TV series.

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!

I would have to say that the basic problem with this movie is that it's jot especially interesting - at least, it wasn't to me. Basically, we follow the spiritual journey of Corinne (Vera Farmiga, who also directed this) from childhood through a fundamentalist upbringing and involvement in a fundamentalist Christian sect until the point at which (literally) she walks out of the door and into a new life. To be honest, I felt little connection with Corinne. I didn't find the character well developed. We saw her at various points in her life, but the connections between those various points weren't explored. Corinne seems to struggle with her faith from the moment that she gets "saved," never really comfortable with it, but not really comfortable breaking away from it either. Her struggles with her faith is portrayed in a number of scenes where she clearly thinks thoughts that are unacceptable to the sect to which she belongs (there's a hint of lesbianism scattered in this movie, especially in the relationship between Corinne and Annika (Dagmara Dominczyk.) Corrine has fantasies about Annika - portrayed fairly innocently on screen - but they surely represent her inner struggle with the idea that there has to be more to life than she's seeing as a part of this rather controlling sect, where she's being constantly told how to dress and where it's clear that women are second class members.)The movie wasn't overtly negative of this type of Christianity. It's clear that some members of the sect are quite content with this life. It's just that Corinne wasn't. I would have liked to have seen more about Corrine's spiritual search. The only form of Christianity she was exposed to outside of the sect she belonged to was charismatic Christianity (Annika spoke in tongues.) But even though Christianity is far more diverse than that, the movie's end seemed to point to a sense that Corinne either had to stay with the sect or leave the faith altogether. There was no reference at all to more mainline versions of Christianity, although that may in itself make a point. As a mainline pastor, my general observation has been that people raised in fundamentalist backgrounds tend to give up on the church altogether if they rebel, rather than seeking out a more moderate take on Christianity; almost as if they think, even though they've rejected the teaching, that fundamentalism is still the only valid expression of Christianity that there is. I refer to the group as a "sect" because I didn't have a sense that they belonged to any particular denomination. They seemed to be a very independent group (which, to me, raises all sorts of problems in terms of accountability.) Some of the sect members seemed to be a bit of a caricature of such people. There was a very "hippy-ish" quality to some of them.Watching Corinne's spiritual evolution was somewhat interesting, and the ending of the movie, as she walked out the door of the sect's service, did make me feel some sympathy for her. It was as if she was on her own, with no help, no one to turn to after all these years when she was told so much about how to live. Overall, though, the movie didn't really strike much of a chord with me. (4/10)

I can understand why many people will fail to see Farmiga's genius in creating this gem. It is a slow, thoughtful movie. The fact that Corinne sometimes seems to lack emotion is part of the point. She is repressed in every way, yet at times the true woman's spirit shines through - when laughing with her children, for example - and this contrast shows the depth of Farmiga's acting ability as well as her admirable restraint and daring as a director. To honestly portray a repression that is as much internally as it is externally driven - this is a fine line, and one that Farmiga walks with delicacy.Watching Higher Ground was a deeply personal experience for me. Corinne's story could be mine in so many ways. From the music (which I knew word-for-word), to the nearly word-perfect alter calls for children (while every head is bowed and every eye is closed), to Corinne's moments of recognition (inside with you, or outside with the dogs), everything felt intensely real and honest. People who see this movie as attacking Christianity are probably not able to see their own worlds with any spirit of truth, as - for me, anyway - everything about Corinne's experiences in her church was painted accurately and with a painful degree of realism.I watched this movie with my husband, who was raised without any religion and has a hard time understanding what it was like for me to walk away from my whole life, my whole world. This movie helped me express to him that pain, and that freedom. Like Corinne, I simply couldn't pretend anymore.