SPC is the Chosen Place of Worship for Farmiga’s ‘Higher Ground’

Despite the crazy mount of sales that took place, this pikc-up acts as a reminder that not all Sundance Film Festival titles were picked up before Day 11. One such title, the U.S Dramatic Competition selected Higher Ground has found a home with adult cinephile audience specialist Sony Pictures Classics — a great fit for a film that I think many would agree was inoffensive, but far from tone-deaf as Vera Farmiga managed to give this decades-spanning tale an authentic charm that challenges notions of faith and religion in a manner that is far from Hallmark Card-ish.

Gist: Inspired by the resonant memoir written by Carolyn Briggs (who also co-wrote the screenplay), This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost, the film is a study of one woman’s internal struggle with the primary love relationships in her life. As a contemplative child, Corrine (Farmiga) longs for stability and a sense of belonging. Her parents’ marriage disintegrates when Corrine is fifteen, so she searches for security in Ethan (Leonard), a talented musician. After a shotgun wedding and a terrifying brush with death, the couple dedicates their lives to God and joins a small hippie church. Corrine and Ethan find strength and joy in this community, though some of the tenets leave Corrine unsettled. The results provoke her to begin asking questions and inspire her to finally claim her own voice.

Worth Noting: Farmiga filmed the picture in the hot summer months while she had one in the oven and you can say that she decided to direct the picture almost accidentally.

Do We Care?: We hope that faith-based audiences and typical SPC fans converge onto this title — it doesn’t look like much, but it’s got a beat.