"Miracle From Heaven" Review

With Easter coming up just around the corner, I wanted to take a look at a couple Christian films for the next couple editions. For this edition, I took a look at the moving 2016 Christian drama “Miracles from Heaven.”

Anna Beam lives with a rare, incurable disorder that leaves her unable to digest food. Despite the dire diagnosis, devoted mom Christy relentlessly searches for a way to save her beloved daughter.

Everything changes in an instant when Anna tells an amazing story of a visit to heaven after surviving a headlong tumble into a hollow tree. Her family and doctors become even more baffled when the young girl begins to show signs of recovering from her fatal condition.

Based on an incredible true story, “Miracles from Heaven” is a great Christian drama that the whole family can see together. The film’s story is incredibly moving and there are quite a few moments that will surely make you shed a tear or two or more.

The cast’s performance really helped build the film’s emotion, especially Jennifer Garner who portrays the sick girl’s mother. We follow her character throughout most of the film and also see how the mother is emotionally suffering and even begins to lose faith during the entire ordeal.

This emotional Christian drama shows us that there are also good people (friends, family, etc) around us and will always help us out when life is hard and you feel like giving up. One of the several moments that really got me is the scene where Anna’s father and her sisters are at the airport to surprise Anna and they are having trouble getting tickets due to their declined credit cards. 

After overhearing from the sisters what’s going on with Anna, the airport worker still gives them the tickets, which his generosity gave them a much needed boost of hope.

“Miracles from Heaven” is a great film to watch with the entire family. It’s very emotional and explores themes of faith, resilience and the power of belief in the face of hardship, ultimately suggesting that any miracle is God’s way of letting us know that He is present even in the darkest of times.

This film is also based on the faith-based memoir, “Miracles from Heaven: A Little Girl, Her Journey to Heaven, and Her Amazing Story of Healing.” During the final few moments before the credits, we also see the real Beam family.

MPA; PG for thematic material, including accident and medical images   (running time 109 minutes)

You can find “Miracles from Heaven” at various PVOD rental services. And, for the next edition I will be taking a look at the film “The Passion of the Christ”.

• In every sequence where a miracle happens, or is about to happen, a butterfly is visible.

• The band Third Day appears in the film, leading worship at the Beams' church.

• During the making of the film, God touched Garner's heart. She told an audience at T.D. Jakes' church 'The Potter's House' that the Beam family's faith was a big part of that transformation.

• While the film is mostly accurate to the book and the real story, it is ultimately a somewhat loose adaptation.

• For one, the film's structure is much more streamlined and linear, the book is not. The book frequently jumps back and forth in time, with Anna falling into the tree in the early chapters (albeit in small bits)

• Moreover, many aspects of the book were heavily toned down to maintain a family friendly PG rating as Anna's condition is depicted in a much tamer way as the film omits Anna being visibly malnourished and having to undergo multiple surgeries described in somewhat graphic detail as well as having a noticeable feeding tube inserted into her collarbone.

• Also, the film makes it seem as though the entire ordeal takes place over the course of a few months, but it actually took place over the course of 5 years as she was only 6 years old when she was diagnosed father than 10 as she is in the film.

• The real Annabel Beam and her family are shown in the end of the film.