Miracles From Heaven is an atypical typical Christian movie. And that’s a good thing.
I watch a lot of Christian movies, and I’ve gotten pretty familiar with what a “typical” Christian movie looks, sounds and feels like. And, at least at first glance, movies don’t get more “Christian” than this.
When two of the three words in your title are explicitly spiritual, you know this isn’t a flick trying to attract, say, the Deadpool crowd. The poster looks like it was taken right off a church bulletin, from sun shining through tree branches to the pastoral landscape to the mother and daughter looking suggestively skyward.
The trailer checks off more Christian movie-making boxes: Sun-dappled scenery. Loving, Christian family. Terrible, faith-shaking tragedy. And then, a miracle. From heaven. All it needs is a few footballs (because we Christians love our football movies) for it to soar to the top of the heap of Christian-flick stereotypes.
But then you watch the thing. And you find that it’s pretty good. Miracles from Heaven doesn’t break the stereotypical mold for Christian moviemaking: It redeems it.
Much of the credit goes to Jennifer Garner. Playing mother Christy Beam, whose middle daughter is suffering from a mysterious digestive ailment, Garner is as charming and as riveting as I’ve ever seen her. Sure, the one-time Alias star (who could’ve well been nominated for an Oscar for her work in 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club) never quite nails a Texas accent. But her performance is otherwise so strong and so compelling that you probably won’t notice and, even if you do, you probably won’t care.
The supporting cast rises to Garner’s level. Martin Henderson plays Christy’s husband, Kevin, with understated force—his character serving as a sometimes desperate voice of faith even as his wife loses hers. Queen Latifah is great as a seemingly heaven-sent friend who comes alongside Christy and her sick daughter, Anna, when they travel to Chicago for treatment. And the girl who plays Anna, Kylie Rogers, is pretty winsome, too, displaying at turns optimism, anger and flat-out despair as she struggles to come to terms with a sickness that won’t let go.
Miracles From Heaven shows what good acting can do for a movie—particularly a Christian one. Scenes that could’ve felt forced and cheesy reach a higher level here. The crazy-but-true ending (Miracles From Heaven is based on a book by the real Christy Beam) feels, because of the acting, more grounded and believable.
Indeed, the whole flick feels real—thanks not just to the acting, but to the decisions of the movie’s makers. Despite the name, this movie spends surprisingly little time focused on either “miracles” or “heaven,” but rather on an ordinary family struggling through an extraordinary trial. We see the toll that it takes on everyone. We see their frustration, their hurt, their doubt. Especially their doubt.
It’s not unusual in Christian flicks for someone to doubt or struggle with their faith at times, but so often these “turn from Jesus” moments can come across as false. Or, worse, they can turn the faith-based audience against a character: The characters’ lack of faith makes them a bad person—at least temporarily.
But when Garner’s Christy Beam struggles with her faith in a just-and-loving God, we in the audience never lose our own faith in—or our love for—her. We’re allowed to sympathize with her, to understand where she’s at. She’s still the same loving mom we’ve come to know—just one who’s not sure whether she’s in it all alone.
Miracles From Heaven never turns atheists or non-believers into villains. (In fact, the meanest characters here are Christian.) But it does show how powerful faith can be—not just in the midst of miracles, but in its ability to comfort and even save someone. To find hope in an otherwise hopeless situation.
It’s been a really nice year for Christian movies so far, from Risen to The Young Messiah to, now, Miracles From Heaven. The bar for faith-based films is rising. Let’s hope it continues.
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