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Higher Ground (2011) versus Secret Sunshine (2007) (Spoilers)

posted 12 years ago by JustMammal
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Both of these movies contain way too many sermons & church songs, for the liking of an atheist like me. Yet, they are at the end both critical/skeptical about the religion, showing the progression of their protagonist from non-belief to belief [evangelical Christianity] & then to non-belief again.

Because of the intensity of the drama in the Secret Sunshine, I liked it somewhat more (although I appreciate understated movies too). But true superiority of the "Secret Sunshine" versus "Higher Ground" is in its ending, which is much more masterfully done. And, while "Higher Ground" tends to be provocative in more sophomoric ways (although I loved the scene when she asks the "therapist" if he'd enjoy watching her burn in hell). "Secret Sunshine" asks more serious philosophical questions such as whether the God has the right to forgive a murder when the victim's mother hasn't forgiven him first.

[–] hilaryjrp 12 years ago

Secret Sunshine is by far the stronger film. Many evangelicals here have said, not inaccurately, that Higher Ground pits Christianity against Protagonist, when a truly Christian film would pit agony (like in Secret Sunshine) against the need to wake up every morning and continue plodding one's way through life. In this respect, Higher Ground was very...juvenile. It was a great film, but not at all a deep one.

Secret Sunshine is not only gut- but soul-wrenching. Its protagonist is clearly mentally ill from the very beginning, and makes one wrong decision after another. Her segue into evangelical Christianity is just a symptom of her agony. This is also true (in a much milder form) of the heroine of Higher Ground. But Secret Sunshine doesn't pit Christianity *alone* against a helpless, wounded soul. Long before Secret Sunshine even introduces Christianity, we see that society itself in the small town that its heroine and her son relocate to is totally polite and civil--and therefore brutal--to a stranger who needs real warmth. So it is not merely Christianity that is being criticized in that film; in Higher Ground, it is.