KCUR's Steve Walker shares his top movie picks of the week.By Steve Walker
Kansas City, MO – Based on Carolyn Briggs' memoir This Dark World, the films marks Oscar-nominated actress Vera Farmiga's confident directorial debut. She plays Corinne, an evangelical Christian woman, wife and mother whose faith is tested when one of her best friends (who she envies because she can speak in tongues and is therefore more godly) gets a debilitating illness. The friend becomes mute and shriveled, and Corinne, hearing her preacher (two-time Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz) infer that it was God's will, begins to question her belief in a deity that would be so cruel. We can see in Farmiga's delicate, perfectly pitched performance a woman falling farther removed from what she used to hold dear and what her cultish neighbors and husband hold over her. The movie's pacing may be too slow for some tastes but the gravity of the film is raised by Farmiga's presence both behind and in front of the camera.