One could argue that the trailers for this movie tell the viewer all he/she needs to know about the whole story which is about a girl who is terminally ill and then falls out of a tree and somehow by some miracle is cured. What the trailer does not tell you is the great acting of Jennifer Garner and the story of what a family already in financial trouble has to go through to pay for the insane medical bills that can ruin lives and are in many cases medical tragedies that can be completely futile attempts to save the life of a child. Despite knowing the happy ending in advance, this story was told very well and was tragically effective at depicting the insanity of the medical world in present day United States. An additional side story in this movie was about another girl with terminal cancer and her situation was equally as tragic as the main character in this movie.
One part of this that really stood out was that the parents of the young girl played extremely well by Kylie Rogers would have had to wait a full 9 months to even see a specialist for the rare intestinal disease their daughter had were it not for the persistence of her mother. Clearly the child would never have lived long enough to see this specialist were it not for another miracle of a helpful medical receptionist who begged the doctor to see this child before it was too late. What also brings great emotion in this movie are the adorable face and eyes of the young girl who plays the main role in this movie during some of the medical procedures which at times are hard to watch.
The additional story with Queen Latifah befriending the mother and young girl during their trip to see the specialist in Boston seemed more like an afterthought and overall I thought did not fit well in this movie. One had to think that the story as it probably stood originally did not create a movie that was close to 2 hours long so this extra side story was added.
This movie challenges the existence of God in several scenes in this movie, especially by the girls mother played by Garner and the scenes that stands out the most are the stupid comments by some of the neighbors of the family with the ill child, actually questioning the sins of the parents and even the young girl in their attempt to understand why the young girl got this horrible medical affliction in the first place and was not yet healed. I for one was hoping for a more extreme reaction from the mother after hearing the cruel comments from her fellow parishioners in the church they all attend.
Other scenes that stand out are the callous and egomaniacal attitudes of the doctors who for a long period of time could not figure out and correctly diagnose the illness of the young girl, constantly thinking that her problems were minor and would go away on their own. One young doctor in an emergency room was particularly rude to the girls mother requiring the mother to take extreme action to figure out what was wrong with her daughter.
Of course the financial nightmare of going through something like this are unfortunately a major part of the story, and one has to wonder why the father of 3 daughters would put his family in great financial jeopardy by taking a huge second mortgage on their house for his business before the discovery of his middle daughter's illness.
Miracles from Heaven may be another tearjerker, but it was an extremely well made one and a very good family picture as well. I highly recommend this movie.
Miracles from Heaven - IMDB
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