New poster for Higher Ground, Vera Farmiga's directorial debut

Vera Farmiga has never said an untrue line in any movie she's been featured in, and watching her career take off the way it has makes me very happy. After really catching people's eyes back in 2004 with Down to the Bone, she got stuck in a rut where she was always the tough but hopelessly burdened mother. She was damn good at playing that type of character, but it looked like she might not get the shot to prove how much more she could do. The Departed started to change that, but it was her sexy, Oscar nominated turn in Up in the Air that really made me people realize how much of a star she truly is. Now she's branching out into directing with the film, Higher Ground.


Based on Carolyn Briggs' religious novel This Dark World: A Memoir Of Salvation Lost And Found, Farmiga will also star as the book's author, who turns to a Christian fundamentalist community as a way of answering life's tough questions, until she begins to challenge those answers for herself. John Hawkes(Winter's Bone) and Donna Murphy(Tangled) also star.

Higher Ground has received some mixed reviews on the festival circuit, but it's still due to release on a limited basis on August 26th. For now you'll have to settle for the new poster above, and this brief teaser trailer...