Checked out the film Miracles from Heaven, a movie where, if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the movie (except you haven’t seen enough child-suffering). Seriously, the part in the trailer where the miracle happens takes place in the last 15 minutes or so. Up to that point, this is a movie about an angry, frustrated, committed mother (played by Jennifer Garner) who moves heaven and earth to get medical help for her sick daughter.
It’s a pretty good film, especially if you’re the type who would gravitate toward it. It’s a tough film because it wallows in the sick, sad world of this little girl with a gasto-intestinal disease… there’s SO much watching a little girl cry in pain and (literally) wish for death (because then the pain will stop and she’ll be in heaven). There was a point in the flick where I started to hate it for the amount of misery it was trying to put the audience through.
And, since this is a religious film, there is a miracle (from heaven) and a happy ending. A cynical person might wonder what the makers of the film are trying to say about religious faith and sick children… but I think other people will just have their world view confirmed, thank-you-very-much.
So, yeah, it’s a well-made, well-acted film that has its treacly and preachy moments but that’s surprisingly not the focus of the film. And when it does get there, it could have been more heavy-handed than it was. If the trailers make you wanna see this, you’ll probably enjoy it more than me… but just go in with fair warning about, ugh, depressingly long scenes of sick children.
Score: 76