My take on this film (possible spoilers)

I just saw the movie, and rewatched the scene with the birthday cake twice. Corinne's dad (John Hawkes)was very sweet to her mom (Donna Murphy) and complimented her cake-baking skills at the beginning and she beamed like a teenager. The dad was not making noises at the mother, and she was not looking at him with contempt at all. They kept staring at one another, eventually with tears in their eyes, and he finally mouthed, "I still love ya". At the end of the scene someone asked her, "Kathleen, did you bring ice cream for the cake?" That snapped her out of her trance with the dad and she said "Coming right up" and she got up from the table. You then saw her present husband looking at her very sadly, apparently realizing she still loves the ex-husband.

Earlier in the movie, the ex-husband said something to effect of, "The death of your little brother ruined our marriage and I regret it". Not those exact words, but something like that.

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Very thoughtful OP. I am not sure this is the place to post my own take on the film, or merely comment on yours. For starters I agree with the first comment regarding the father really complimenting the mother.

Anyway, one of the key parts of the film I think I can humbly add here in attempting to understand the congregation pictured came up when the minister spoke with derision about people who seem half hearted, or not free of questioning, when it comes to their faith. This in fact covers a broad range of possible behaviors and attitudes, from the intellectually driven Agnostic, to those (as I think it is best to describe Corrine) who theoretically are complete believers, but who find their own feelings and strength of conviction challenged, at least at some times. Others may merely be emotionally predisposed to lacking conviction or the ability to make a final choice, as in the term Laodidcean (see Thomas Hardy's excellent novel A Laodicean).

The point is I do not think most Christians or Christian sects, or for that matter religions in general, perhaps Islam being an exception, that make that kind of wholesale rejection of those who for whatever reason have their doubts. To the contrary, it is my understanding that faith is not necessarily supposed to be so easy as it is portrayed by many of the characters in the congregation.

This does not mean, of course, that such people do not really exist. No, not by any means. Corrine seems completely serious and genuine when she says to the minister that she admires his depth and certainty of faith. Whether the lacking she feels in comparison to him comes from something lackig in herself, or that God, Jesus, has not come to her in a way that would solidify her faith, is not the point necessarily raised here. She is instead asking them, the rest of the congregation, to at least understand why she struggles when they seem not to.

Of course whether all the rest of the congregation is as ardent and certain as the minister is far from clear, and clearly is also not necessarily the case.

The point I think is that there are not only different understandings of how to go about being a Christian (another example concerns the different views presented of speaking in tongues even within this congregation), but also of how strongly faith is felt by individual Christians.

While I along with the OP felt much moved by a film that raises such hugely important questions in a serious way, I must say there were elements of the film that undercut its overall quality and value. These included shaky plausibility to tne first encounter between the teenaged Corrine and her future husband. I also had to wonder why at no point before it was so far gone as it were that she didn't express her concerns in some way to her husband. These two elements were critical plot turns, and while I would not begin to argue that either amounted to plot holes, they did jar my view of the film. More generally one might see Corrine on a purely social level as a bit of a self centered person. While her religious journey and eventual open questioning were real, the way she in effect waited until she had reached a tentative conclusion of sorts seemed at least somewhat self involved, when one considers the commitment her husband had made, and that along the way they had brought three children into the world. The way it seemed somewhat self absorbed seemed to detract from the overall subject matter.

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I just find it amazing & fascinating how different some perspectives are. It is hard for me to understand how you could think the mothers eyes were burning with contempt. What have you been through in your life where you would completely misunderstand what was going on in that scene? If I were that actress I would be horrified... But I truly hope you are in the minority with that assessment.

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Well, this movie did not do great business and I'm sure most of the people who did see it at the handful of movie houses where it played were probably Christian. And they went to see it either mostly unaware of the original book or out of curiosity at how the material was handled by "Hollywood".

I look around at this message board for this film and I don't see much traffic here either. That is interesting. Most people either believer or un-believer probably didn't think much of this film or were put off by it. Most of the comments and questions I have seen so far are very thoughtful.

Welcome to the wonderful world of limited release
A lot of indie movies are seen by very few people. I think that one, despite its limited resources, might actually have been seen by more people than others because of Farmiga's growing popularity but it wasn't a blockbuster, of course.

In the course of the film, I saw the characters both driven to faith and away from faith through the hard grinder of the various circumstances of life.

That is beautifully put and very true.

The most jarring scene was the birthday party when Corrine and Ethan re-enacted their cake ritual. All kinds of illusions and realities flew across that table. From the kids wanting their parents to re-unite to Corinne's father making noises at his ex-wife and her eyes burning with contempt for him.

It was a very interesting scene but I think it was mostly because of the way it encapsulated the divide that can exist between love and marriage, the same way that it can exist between religion and faith.
Corrine's parents failed to remain married after they lost a child, that's sadly not uncommon, but they still have feelings for each other. They just couldn't make their feelings work with the reality of their marriage.
Corinne and her husband never had much in common, I believe, except the willingness to make it happen, to have a life together, to be "real". The "reenactment" of their wedding cake picture only brought nostalgia for the innocence they had at the time, but not the feelings you can see in her parents.

This also reflects Corinne's last speech to what used to be her church. She really wanted to make it real but it never really happened for her and she envies those who can make their faith a reality through religion. Just like she was watching that couple of friends who, despite not being able to have kids, seem to share a connection that she never had with her husband.

One interesting question of course is what is God all about? Is God mostly indifferent or is God a merry prankster who brings a dog to church to lure the main character out of the chapel and then surround her with other dogs. What does God really want with any of us?

My grandfather used to say that religion is following others and faith is following your heart. He was a very spiritual man who studied all religions but could never reconcile his faith in the divine with the structure of religions.
I don't know what the Gods want, whatever their name, whoever, wherever they may be. But I think for Corinne, she was just meant to follow her own path, outside the structure and organizing of faith through religion. That's what the dogs were meant to symbolize for her.

I don't know if I'd ever want to see another movie like this one anytime soon but I'm glad I saw it and it was better of an examination of people than just about anything I've seen this year.

Took me a while to get to it because it's been on my watchlist for years and I kept adding movies on top, just because I was worried it would be "preachy" (although knowing Farmiga a little better through interviews, in retrospect that seemed unreasonable) but I'm glad I saw it.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco

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