Somewhere in New York City, Vera Farmiga is lounging in a hotel bed in “a ‘foofey’ comforter,” she says on the phone.
The Oscar-nominated actress who gave George Clooney’s character the romantic what-for in the dramedy “Up in the Air” is calling from Manhattan, where she’s fielding questions about her latest movie, “Higher Ground.”
Set to open in Denver in early September, the spiritual drama premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. And this year’s indie showcase brimmed with movies that teased, winked or exploited religion or spiritual hankering, among them “Salvation Boulevard” (playing in town) and “Red State,” by indie provocateur Kevin Smith.
Yet “Higher Ground” was different. So was Farmiga’s role in it.
Based on Carolyn Briggs’ “This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost,” the movie engages one woman’s struggle with faith’s ardor and doubt’s challenges.
But Farmiga isn’t talking so much about her work portraying Corinne, a wife and mother, a believer and doubter living in a nurturing if at times restrictive religious community.
Neither is she recapping her choice roles in Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed” or “Up in the Air” or spring’s action thriller “Source Code.”
Instead, she’s ruminating on her unexpected — and quite nice — directorial debut.
“If you’d told me two years ago that I would direct a film, I would have told you it was preposterous, ludicrous. I don’t want the responsibility. I don’t want or need to direct. I don’t feel an impetus.”
But then, movie projects are notorious for hairpin turns. You’ve got the script but not the star. The lead actor but not the right director. The window when everyone you want in a cast is a go, but the financing isn’t secure.
“This was one of those weird turns in the road,” says Farmiga. Taking the director gig was “by necessity. Otherwise, the film would have resided in a purgatory.”
Writer Tim Metcalf sent the script and Briggs’ book to Farmiga after her 2004 breakout performance as a former (then not) drug addict and mother in “Down to the Bone,” for which she won a special jury prize at Sundance. At the time, Metcalf was attached to direct. He now shares a screenwriting credit with Briggs.
Once she met Briggs in person, the two worked closely together.
“The more I got to know her, the more special I thought her story was. How specific and universal it was. How the only way to change things is to be your genuine self. ”
When things started to stall for the film, Farmiga took advantage of the buzz coming from her Oscar nomination, seizing “whatever energy came my way,” she says. “It was timing. It was very precisely timing.”
The result is a beautifully measured drama with muted moments of humor and a great hymn book of a soundtrack. But even more impressive in these riven times is the fact “Higher Ground” takes a smartly respectful if questioning approach to faith — in particular the evangelical Christian variety.
“The aim of the film is not to convert or unconvert,” says Farmiga, who characterized her childhood home to Christianity Today as a “Ukrainian Catholic turned Christian household.”
“Higher Ground” touches on “the struggle as I know it to be and the struggle I will continue to experience. The struggle to conceptualize divinity and relate to it,” she says in a voice that mixes intellectual intensity with warmth.
“All our meaningful relationships in life — none of them are free of uncertainty and doubt. Why should a relationship with God be any less challenging — whatever your concept of God is? I think that’s true religion: the people who engage that struggle, who acknowledge doubt and the disenchantment.”
Does the fortuitous nature of Farmiga’s directorial debut mean she won’t be stepping behind the camera again?
“No. I loved it,” she says. “I loved the challenge. It was an enormous challenge— to infuse it with yourself, your ideas, your perceptions. It was huge. It was a tall order. As high as you reach, that much you’ll grow.”
Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@ denverpost.com; also on blogs.denverpost.com/ madmoviegoer
