Actress Vera Farmiga steps behind the camera in her pointed look at life as a conflicted Christian.

At the start of Higher Ground, a shaggy young man is proclaiming, in the woodsy, sunny outdoors, the cleansing light that Jesus has filled him with. He is Ethan (Joshua Leonard), husband of Corinne (first-time director, actress and here, star, Vera Farmiga), both of whom are in the process of getting right with God. Again.


It’s an edgy kind of scene. To nonbelievers, repelled by the unyielding zealotry of groups like the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, as well as films like Jesus Camp, it can look like he’s yelling, “Look at me! I’m crazy! Hallelujah!” To believers, he’s just being a faithful evangelical, which breaks down, in Greek, to “good news” – delivering good news. 


Higher Ground, inspired by screenwriter Carylyn S. Briggs’ memoir This Dark World, seems to walk into the commotion of the raised voices of religious debate, and talk sensibly and with dignity until the noise abates and we’re just listening to the reason and passion of the film. It looks upon its subjects – a small but growing band of Christian couples and families – with scrutiny and with compassion and the sageness of a sane, intelligent adult might.


The story follows Corrine as she grows up from a girl on a Midwest farm with her parents and sister Wendy, when she first raises her hand to receive Jesus at summer Bible camp – just to see what happens; to a sensitive teenage aspiring writer falling in love with Ethan, a kindred musician; to a young mother after having married Ethan and seemingly left the church behind.


While on tour in Ethan’s band’s bus, with her baby inside, they get into a horrifying accident. Because they and their baby survive, the young couple is shaken, and look to find answers in the Bible they abandoned somewhere along the line. That’s when they find, and join, a small band of 1970s hippie Christians, led by enigmatic and benevolent Pastor Bill (Norbert Leo Butz). They sing hymns together to Ethan’s guitar, study scripture in each other’s living rooms, and comfort each other. They’ve found their place in the world.


And that’s where Farmiga, as both actress and director, plants her feet and begins to dig into the spiritual evolution of the sensitive Corinne, revealing little signs of curiosity and independent thinking that suggests she is yearning. When Corinne and her lusty, earthy best friend Annika (Dagmara Dominczyk) go for a driving lesson and Annika senses Corinne’s questioning, she shouts, “Get thee behind us, Satan!” Corinne yells, “Yeah, get lost, bub!”


In church she rises to speak to the congregation about her ideas of her own faith and is later politely rebuked for speaking her mind – a job for the men. When another Christian man complements her dress, she is, again politely (always politely), chided for wearing the too-attractive off-the-shoulders number.


But when her sister, who in youth was popular but who is now a bit of a happy mess, comes to visit, she revisits a sisterhood that didn’t begin and end with God. She has deep spiritual discussions with Ethan in bed while growing more affectionate with Annika, even allowing herself a sexual daydream with her friend, though she’s having less sex with her husband. Corinne’s marriage, like her faith in God, is slipping, and there are tests of both to come. 


Higher Ground unfolds at a steady, almost predictable pace, though the tone of the movie is so unbiased and natural that it gets tricky to predict where each scene will go and how each character will react. Farmiga fills her normally piercing eyes with clouds of wonder and doubt, and acts with the grace of a woman who is loving and curious. All the actors live up to the warm, smart script, particularly Butz as the group’s spiritual leader and Dominczyk as Annika. The period – and class-specific clothing and decor – and sometimes gorgeous music, as in an aching “The Sweetest Name I Know” – hit the right tone, but, again, Farmiga’s sense of kinship with the characters, both in her acting and her directing, sets this film apart. She is literally in the same room with this close-knit Christian community, as a member, while aiming an unbiased camera lens on them. 


Corinne and most every major character in the film, at times, find what they are looking for, lose what they think they need, and just have to keep moving somehow. This is honest, searching filmmaking, set at the pitch of real life. 


HIGHER GROUND (3) Directed by Vera Farmiga. Starring Vera Farmiga, John Hawkes, Joshua Leonard, Dagmara Dominczyk. Rated R. At Osio Cinemas.