Miracles from Heaven, the true story that was made into a book, will hit the big screen on Wednesday, March 16th thanks to producers T.D. Jakes, DeVon Franklin (or as I know him Meagan Good's husband), and Joe Roth. This is Franklin's first time producing a film, though he has one other experience in film as an actor in Woodlawn. Jakes and Roth previously teamed up to produce a film similar to Miracles from Heaven, Heaven is for Real.
The film follows the story of a Texas mother, Christy Beam (Jennifer Garner), who is seeking healing for her middle daughter, Anna Beam (Kylie Rogers). In the middle of the night, Anna gets ill and is vomiting. Her stomach is inflated, and she's in constant pain. Despite visiting different doctors, no one can figure out what is wrong with Anna. One doctor even suggests she is just lactose intolerant. But this changes after another trip to the ER, where Christy demands the nonchalant ER doctor, who's ready to send Anna home with nausea meds, bring in another doctor. This doctor discovers Anna has an incurable condition where her body is unable to digest food. He provides some temporary solutions for feeding Anna, which includes meds and a feeding tube that must be inserted through Anna's nose (painful to watch), and he recommends a specialist in Boston, Dr. Nurko (Eugenio Derbez). But despite the calls and letters from both Christy and doctors, Anna is put on a wait list that only opens up when one of Dr. Nurko's other patients dies.
When Christy's eldest daughter, Abbie Beam (Brighton Sharbino), asks Christy if Anna is going to die, Christy realizes she can't just sit around waiting for Anna to be taken off the wait list. She tells her husband, Kevin Beam (Martin Henderson), Anna is dying and she has to take her to Boston to see Dr. Nurko, appointment or no appointment. And that is just what she does! She and Anna head to Boston and go to see Dr. Nurko. When the receptionist, played by Suehyla El-Attar, asks Christy what time her appointment is with Dr. Nurko, Christy admits they do not have an appointment scheduled. And this is when I lose all control of my tear ducts. Up to this point I managed to check my urge to cry, despite it being so hard to watch a child endure so much and watch her mother having to deal with wanting to make her baby feel better but being unable to. And this is definitely a reflection of both the great acting of Garner and the phenomenal acting of Rogers. In fact, all of the three daughters, including the baby girl, Adelynn Beam (Courtney Fansler) did a wonderful acting job. But when Christy let's it all out before this receptionist about why Anna has to see Dr. Nurko, despite not having an appointment, I couldn't hold the tears in any longer (though disappointingly Garner couldn't seem to get them out). Garner's delivery and face exuded pain and anguish, though the tears never came for her. Unfortunately, the receptionist was unable to help them, the rules were the rules and the receptionist was new to the job.
Christy and Anna left the hospital, still hoping they might get a call that an appointment opened up. They go to a restaurant for Christy to grab a bite to eat, recall Anna can't eat without a feeding tube. When grabbing for her glass to take her meds, Anna knocks over the glass of water. The waiter verbally expressed his annoyance, and in comes Angela (Queen Latifah), who offers to wait on the table. As if a sign of what was to come in the next scene, the waiter agrees to let Angela take over waiting on Christy and Anna's table, referring to Angela sarcastically as "your majesty." Some of us in the audience chuckled a bit, connecting the reference to QUEEN Latifah. The laugh was a welcome relief from the ever growing tear jerker factor of the film up to that point. After hearing why they were in Boston, Angela offers to give Christy and Anna a tour of Boston the next day on her day off. The next scene between Angela, Christy, and Anna was a great source of comic relief, as Angela enthusiastically takes Christy and Anna on a personal tour of Boston from her year or two from the junkyard car! And then when they go to visit the aquarium, and then also to look at a painting, the film gives the audience a time of reflection. As you watched the animals in the aquarium, and then zoomed in on the painting that Anna eventually stood up and walked closer to for a closer and deeper look, you begin to think about God and how He is our Creator and we are just one of his many beautiful pieces of art. While looking at the piece of art on the wall, Christy gets the call they were hoping for. Anna gets an appointment with Dr. Nurko, a specialist with a knack for interacting with children.
The film then goes into a montage of the family adjusting to the every six weeks doctor appointments in Boston. Anna isn't getting any better, and Dr. Nurko has already told Christy most of what they can do is work on quality of life, as there is no cure for what Anna has. Kevin, who is a veterinarian with a new large practice thanks to them taking out all of the equity in their home, has to take on the role of Christy at home with their two other daughters while Christy and Anna are in Boston. Things seem to be running smoothly until Kevin forgets to take Abbie to her tryouts to make it onto an all-city soccer team, something Abbie had been hoping and praying for since the beginning of the film. And Christy is stressing out over how they are going to be able to afford all of this, especially given what they've put into Kevin's practice financially. When Kevin tries to tell her she has to stop worrying and have faith (a theme throughout the film, along with hope), Christy reveals to him that she no longer has faith and has even stopped praying!
At one of her appointments, Dr. Nurko has Anna stay in the hospital for a few tests. Anna has a roommate, Haley (Hannah Alligod), who observes Anna's reluctance to remove her necklace with her cross for one of the upcoming tests. Dr. Nurko gets Anna to agree to remove the necklace and place it on the IV so the power of the cross will go inside of her and be with her during the testing. Later, while Haley and Anna are alone, Haley begins to ask Anna questions about the necklace, and Anna shares with her how it helps her remember God is with her. The two also discuss fear of dying, and how knowing God is with her makes Anna less afraid of dying. Later, after witnessing Anna give Haley her necklace with the cross, Haley's father, Ben (Wayne Pere), speaks with Christy outside of the room and asks her to get Anna to refrain from sharing her faith with Haley, as they are not religious. I must say, I found it inspiring to see Anna so easily and readily share her faith as a small child.
Back at home, Abbie gets Anna to climb a tree with her, as a way to lift her spirits. The pair had climbed the tree before, but this time the branch they were sitting on began to crack. Abbie instructed Anna to go sit in the hole in the tree, which was a closed hole, to ensure she was safe before Abbie tried to get down. But when Anna went to sit in the closed off hole, she fell into the 100-year old tree, which turned out to be hollow. She fell 30 feet down inside of the tree, head first! She was unresponsive, and the firefighters had to go inside the tree to get her out, as chopping down the large hollow tree would cause it to crumble on top of her. It took several hours, and several people and the press began to surround the tree. Out of despair, and once again in a situation where she was unable to help her child, Christy fell to her knees at the tree and began to pray aloud to God. Her family and friends came and joined her. They finally pulled Anna out and were able to get her breathing, before sending her and Christy to the hospital in a helicopter.
The trauma doctor told Christy and Kevin that Anna had no injuries, despite falling head first 30 feet into the tree and landing on her skull! Back at home, Christy realized Anna had a lot more energy and hadn't requested a pain killer despite Christy forgetting to give her the last one that was scheduled. Then Anna asked her mother for her pink jeans that didn't fit earlier in the movie, due to the inflation of her intestines. This is when Christy realized Anna's stomach had flattened back to its normal size. At their next appointment in Boston, Dr. Nurko said Anna was asymptomatic, but medically could not say she was cured, because she had what was medically an incurable condition. Christy referred to it as a miracle and asked Dr. Nurko to give her some type of acknowledgement that he believed Anna was cured. So Dr. Nurko, after looking out and seeing Anna doing flips, gave Christy the Elmo tie he once told Anna he had to wear until one of his patients felt better due to a bet he lost to Elmo.
Before leaving Boston for the final time, Christy and Anna tell Angela good bye. Anna asks Angela if she can call her Aunt Angela, because she is more than a friend to her. I thought this was interesting, because I was already wondering how I had the misconception that Queen Latifah would play a larger role in the film. Prior to this scene, outside of the restaurant scene where we first encounter Angela and the scene immediately following that scene where she takes them on a tour of Boston, there are only a few more shots of Angela. These shots are in the montage when Christy and Anna are going back and forth to Boston. There's a scene where Angela is sitting in the waiting room with Christy and there are shots of Angela braiding Anna's hair. And these are quick shots with no lines. I expected Queen Latifah to have a more significant role. And though I think the film didn't necessarily require Queen Latifah to have a greater role, I do think the final scene with Angela along with the request to call her Aunt Angela suggests maybe some of Queen Latifah's scenes were left on the cutting room floor. This final scene with Angela implied that Angela played a critical support role in Boston, as the trailer suggested but the film failed to showcase, given her only major scenes were from the first 24 hours of them meeting her. Though I know this is not a reflection of Queen Latifah's acting, but perhaps rather just a choice on what were the most pertinent parts of the story to share in 2 hours.
Back at home, Anna told her parents she met God while she was unconscious in the tree. She said she asked to stay, which makes sense, because earlier in the film Anna told her mother she wanted to die and be with God to not have any more pain (another major tear jerk moment). But Anna said God told her she had to go back and promised she would be healed and have no more pain when she goes back. When Christy asks Anna whether she had shared this with anyone else and told her others might not understand, Anna tells her she hasn't but that not everyone will believe but they'll get there eventually.
Having stopped going to their church after a few of the members of the congregation told Christy she, her husband, or Anna must be sinning for her to be so sick, Christy returned to the church at the end of the film and was asked to share her and Anna's story. The press and Ben, who heard what happened to Anna after her fall into the tree on the news back in Boston, were also at the church. While Christy's speech pulled the message of faith and hope together, my biggest take away came from the montage that played while she spoke on strangers, friends, and family pulling together to help. The montage revealed unseen parts of various scenes. We see that when Christy's friend came in the middle of the night to babysit the other two girls while Christy and Kevin took Anna to the ER for the first time she brought along her sleeping infant. We see that when the airline employee swiped Kevin's last credit card, after all of his other credit cards declined when he was trying to get a flight for him and the two girls to fly to Boston to surprise Anna and Christy, and he said the system went down and manually gave Kevin the tickets (which means his card couldn't be declined because it was not being charged through an electronic system), he had actually turned the computer off himself! We see that though Angela told Christy and Anna she was off the next day and could take them on a tour of Boston, after they left the restaurant Angela actually went to her boss to request the day off. And, though the receptionist told Christy she was new and could not break the rules to get Anna an appointment with Dr. Nurko, she actually later interrupted Dr. Nurko while he was talking to other doctors to speak to him on Christy and Anna's behalf. This was by far the most moving part of the film for me, because it shows how God can use us to perform a miracle in someone's life. We just have to be open to being kind and generous with our time and actions to allow God to use us!
After Christy speaks, someone in the congregation asks whether they were exaggerating how sick Anna was to get attention. Ben, Haley's father, stood up to attest to being in the hospital and seeing how sick Anna was. He even says he thought she wouldn't make it. He then reveals that his daughter, Haley, had passed away. But he says, thanks to Anna sharing her faith with Haley, she died in peace and unafraid!
The film was well done and had a great message! Grab you some tissue and go see it with your family and friends!