Directed by: Patricia Riggen
Starring: Jennifer Garner, Kylie Rogers, Martin Henderson, John Carroll Lynch, Queen Latifah, Eugenio Derbez, Brighton Sharbino, Courtney Fansier. Bruce Altman
When Miracles from Heaven works, it works well. When it strives to be a tad too manipulative and pound its point home, it doesn't. Based on true events, Miracles from Heaven is adapted from the 2015 book by Christy Beam, the mother of a twelve year-old daughter who suffers from an incurable and terminal digestive disorder. After climbing a hollow tree one day and falling headfirst into the middle of it, her disorder is cured. How did this happen? Should we believe the doctor who treated her, who isn't sure, but thinks the fall may have bumped her head in just the right way to "reset" her digestive system? Or was the cure a miracle from God?
The girl herself thinks the latter. She tells her parents of her vision of heaven, which looks like it was borrowed from the heaven of The Lucky Bones (2009). This means there are colors, endless sunshine, and flora everywhere as far as the eye can see. It's nice, but would get kind of boring fast. Why do movies depict heaven as either an arboretum gone amok or just endless layers of impenetrable clouds? There was the heaven of What Dreams May Come (1998), in which the people were part of a giant colorful painting, but am I to be thrilled at the prospect of walking around this scenery for eternity?
The girl believes what she saw. The parents believe her. Her cure could be an unexplained medical breakthrough, pure luck, or perhaps a spiritual intervention far beyond our comprehension. It depends on your belief structure. And it is a belief. The movie leans more towards the latter explanation, which is its point of view. The movie is faith-based to be sure, but allows its people to have doubts, fears, and even lose faith in God because it seems their prayers have been unanswered. These are natural feelings. Christy, who with her family attends church weekly, asks her pastor (Lynch), "Why would a loving God allow my daughter to suffer like this?" It is a question for which there is no answer. Christy has a crisis of faith while others including her husband Kevin (Henderson) tell her to stay the course and believe.
At first, the daughter Anna (Rogers), throws up often and goes to the hospital. Doctors coldly dismiss the symptoms as lactose intolerance or a simple virus. Soon, her stomach distends, and Anna's condition is diagnosed as a rare digestive disorder in which she can't digest the food her stomach takes in. Christy is referred to a top doctor in Boston, but he has a three-year waiting list. The ER doctor (Altman) says the only way to get on the list is for someone to die and drop off of it. With the exception of Dr. Nurko (Derbez), the doctors here are seen as aloof and unsympathetic. Dr. Nurko is seen as Patch Adams' goofier younger brother.
Christy and Anna befriend a very, very friendly waitress named Angela (Latifah), who offers to take the two on a guided tour of Boston. I understand Angela was supposedly real, but she seems like a plot device. Her name is Angela, deriving from Angel, which can't be a coincidence. Still, Queen Latifah is touching and altogether decent. There seems to be no progress in Anna's condition, so she goes home, climbs the tree one day, and the rest is history.
Before you roll your eyes because I supposedly gave away a spoiler, the trailers for the movie gave this plot point away. This development would have had greater impact if this twist wasn't revealed. But it was revealed, probably to bring the faith-based audience into the theater. Why would the film's marketers only want to appeal to the built-in faith based audience? What about non-believers or agnostics? Their money is just as green and wouldn't it be a home run to perhaps convert an agnostic to their view?
Jennifer Garner and Kylie Rogers both give natural, commanding performances. They never reach for effect. Henderson and Lynch create grounded, believable people. I didn't like Eugenio Derbez' clown act so much. He is better when he is shown as a caring, carefully optimistic doctor. There are some touching moments of genuine power in Miracles from Heaven. I just wish there were more of them. Maybe the trailers shortchanged the experience with its shortsighted marketing strategy.
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