Movie Review: Miracles from Heaven


Miracles from Heaven is based on the true story of a little girl in Texas who suffered from a rare digestive disorder. The story is brought to the big screen with a great cast, including Jennifer Garner, Queen Latifah, and John Carroll Lynch, and you will definitely want to bring Kleenex with you for this movie.

Christy Beam (Garner) lives with her husband, Kevin (Martin Henderson) and their three little girls on a farm in Texas. One night, her middle daughter, Anna, starts having severe stomach pains, and they rush to the ER; the doctor on duty tells her it's nothing, but she demands to have a more senior doctor look at Anna, and later they find it's a rare stomach disease. Anna has to be fed through a tube and will require constant medication; even then, her quality of life isn't great, as Anna is in pain all the time. Christy puts Anna on the waitlist for a specialist in Boston, but the waitlist spans 9 months, and Anna might not make it until then - so, desperately hoping to see the specialist, Christy and Anna fly to Boston to see if he can see them. From there, the two of them start making frequent trips to Boston, for treatment and consultation, but Anna still doesn't seem to be getting any better. A freak accident back in Texas, however, might change that.

I miss seeing Jennifer Garner in movies - I've been a huge fan of hers since Alias, and now that she's older, I mostly see her in "mom" roles like in this film. Her three girls in this film (Kylie Rogers, Brighton Sharbino, and Courtney Fansler) were great too, and you'll recognize some bigger names in the supporting roles here like Queen Latifah and John Carroll Lynch, among others. The movie did have some cheesy parts, but I think that if it had cast a lesser actor than Garner in the role of the mother, the film would not have felt as authentic.

Yes, see this movie, and like I warned you above, bring tissues. I'm usually not one to shed tears during sad scenes in films, but this had me tearing up during more than a few scenes. This movie is also based on the book version (Miracles from Heaven: A Little Girl and Her Amazing Story of Healing), written by Anna's mother (Christy Wilson Beam), which might also be worth reading, especially before or after seeing the film. I'd recommend this movie to anyone who likes inspiring stories, especially one that's family-friendly; the film definitely has religious aspects, as well (hence the title) but I appreciated that while they were a part of the story, they weren't the entire story, as some religious films tend to do.

Miracles from Heaven is in theaters today, March 16th, and is rated PG with a runtime of 109 minutes. 3.5 stars out of 5.

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