Showing posts with label life after death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life after death. Show all posts

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Miracles from Heaven


DIRECTOR: Patricia Riggen  LEAD CAST: Jennifer Garner, Kylie Rogers, Martin Henderson, John Carroll Lynch, Eugenio Derbez, Queen Latifah  SCREENWRITER: Randy Brown  PRODUCER:  DeVon Franklin, T.D. Jakes, Joe Roth  EDITOR: Emma Hickox  GENRE: Drama  CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Checco Varese  DISTRIBUTOR: Columbia Pictures  LOCATION:  United States RUNNING TIME:  109 minutes
Technical assessment:  3.5
Moral assessment:  4
CINEMA rating:  PG13
Ten-year-old Annabel Beams (Kylie Rogers) is diagnosed with an unusual disease in her digestive system.   Undeterred by the distressing prognosis of several doctors, Anna's mom, Christy (Jennifer Garner) is not about to give up. From Texas, she flies Anna to Boston to see Dr. Nurko (Eugenio Derbez), a renowned gastroenterologist at Boston Children's Hospital. However, the lab tests draw out the same results—Anna’s life is threatened by a disease that prevents her body from digesting food.  Palliative care is all they are advised to give to Anna who is then sent home.  One day, while playing with her sister up an old tree, Anna falls headlong into its hollowed core.  Not only does Anna survive the fatal accident—she is also miraculously healed of her fatal illness.
Miracles from Heaven is the latest release from AFFIRM Films, a division of Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA).  AFFIRM’s Mission Statement says it is “dedicated to producing, acquiring, and marketing films which inspire, uplift, and entertain audiences.”  This boutique division of Sony’s is experimenting with penetrating the mainstream market with Christian films such as War room, Moms’ night out, Heaven is for real, Courageous, and Soul surfer.  Judging from its features played during the just concluded Lenten season—Risen and Miracles from Heaven—AFFIRM seems to be on the right track.  While it is clear that fact-based Miracles from Heaven is designed for believers, director Patricia Riggen’s silver screen take of Christy Beams’ 2015 memoir benefits much from the screen presence of Garner, a versatile mainstream star playing the lead.  Garner’s portrayal of the agonizing mom is so convincing the viewer would think she actually owns the pain; close-ups of her emoting are some of the best shots in the movie.  Rogers as the tormented child is also good for her age—rendering pale by comparison the two-dimensional performances of some of the adult supporting actors.
The film is a rich mine of Christian precepts at work in ordinary lives.  It tries to open the viewer’s eyes to the miracles we take for granted—like acts of kindness we do for others, sharing one’s faith, etc.  As a crossover film Miracles from Heaven may come across as melodramatic, gooey, or even preachy to the cynical, but to its target audience it is a welcome departure from the popular menu of egocentric stories.  There’s an otherworldly sequence towards the end that many believers in NDE (near death experience) will find familiar—when Anna is describing to her parents what took place as she lay unconscious inside the tree trunk.  It is brief but striking, capable of moving believers to tears and arousing the curiosity of even dedicated skeptics.  Here Anna admits (spoiler coming!) she has known all along she would be healed.  How?  In a manner we often read about in the lives of Saints, but in Miracles from Heaven the truth issues “from the mouth of babes”, so to speak.  Why doubt?  The witness of innocence is irrefutable.