One family’s faith is the only thing that gets them through a double dose of trauma, in “Miracles From Heaven”. The religiously-tinged family drama is based on the incredible true story of the Beam family and set in Burelson, Texas in 2011. When Christy (Jennifer Garner) and Kevin (Martin Henderson) discover their 10-year-old daughter Anna (Kylie Rogers) has a rare, incurable disease called Obstruction Mobility Disorder, the husband and wife becomes ferocious advocates for their daughter’s healing as she struggles in a race against time for the life of her young daughter, while searching for a solution. After Anna has a freak accident that ends her back up in the hospital, an extraordinary miracle unfolds in the wake of her dramatic rescue that leaves medical specialists like Dr Nurko (Eugenio Derbez) mystified, her family restored and their community inspired. Christy’s dwindling faith gets the unexpected breath of rescue that she has been searching for. “Miracles From Heaven” is based off of the memoir of the same name, is directed by Patricia Riggen, and is rated PG for medical situations.
“Miracles From Heaven” is a scoop of vanilla ice cream, but it’s quite the tasty treat. What I mean is that the film doesn’t take many chances with it’s predictable script, but the film offers a nice mix of religion and educational content to the audience, and it creates an interesting mix. The film offers a satisfying message that is very welcoming for religious and non-religious people.
What surprised me pleasantly the most for Riggen’s film is that she offers a faithful story to the real life Beam family. The film is very in-depth about Anna’s condition, and educated me to no ends about this illness that doesn’t receive a lot of mainstream attention in our world. The movie is definitely a product of PG entertainment, but it grabs its audience by never wasting a minute cuttng away or editing its way through the effects of such a terrible circumstance. This little girl goes through real traumatic hell here, and we are subject to every single aspect of that torture. This area of the film dominates the first 90 minutes of the movie for sure, adding the occasional religious talk to understand the real backstory of Christy’s character and why her faith is dwindling. The movie’s content stays on a pretty straight course until the final fifteen minutes of the movie, which left kind of a negative taste in my mouth after the previous two acts that really hooked itself into my heart. It’s during those minutes where the movie remembers instantly what it is, and does get occasionally preachy. One positive to this is the preaching isn’t overbearing, and the movie even goes out of its way in dialogue to accept every kind of viewer into its message. Well done Patricia.
Some of my negatives centered around two major problems that the movie had. The first comes in its lack of intrigue or edge-of-the-seat moments because of a trailer that is ridiculously coated in spoilers. The Beam family is based on a true story, so anyone who wanted to find out more on their story pre-movie could. But I’m a critic who likes to go into films blindfolded for the most part, and the movie didn’t give me any suspenseful scenes because I always knew what was going to happen because I saw it in the trailer. There’s always that one trailer a year that gives you the whole movie in two minutes, and “Miracles From Heaven” is certainly this year’s “Terminator:Genisys”. My second problem was in its lack of character personalities for the adult characters that showed even more in dedicated camera time. Anna is really the only person in this movie whose story is properly told because she is kind of the centerpiece to this story. However, that leaves a major gap in Garner and Henderson, as they are just your basic Southern stereotypes. Henderson is a dirty jeans cowboy with that twang in his voice, but the film never takes more than a scene to tell what he is going through and how it tears him apart. Garner is surrounded in some cringe-worthy dialogue reads that almost leaks the cheese through this product. There were so many times when she came off as just too bland for her daughter’s life being in danger, and I think the film could’ve used a bigger emphasis of a downward spiral for her. That’s not to say Jen is a terrible actress, but this just isn’t the right kind of role for her range.
Kylie Rogers though, is a force to be reckoned with. One thing that always worries me about child performances is that they just don’t have the experience to capture true pain. Boy was I wrong about this little thunderstorm. In Anna, we see a little girl who is slowly losing her personality and the things that make her lovable side shine through. It’s such an emotional toll on the audience at home because of her incredibly young age, and Kylie was perfect for the role. Many audiences will fall in love with her bright smile, but it’s her long-winded dialogue with tears welling up in her eyes that will send goosebumps through you.
Overall, “Miracles From Heaven” might just be that; a miracle. It’s an against-the-grain religious film that knows when to lay on its content, but also relies heavily on a moral reminder that life is made up of small acts of kindness that happen on a daily basis. Sometimes faith is all someone has when everything else is stripped down. My faith revolves around thanks that trailer song “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten wasn’t played once in this song. For that alone, this gets a passing grade.
6/10