Opening

The Other Side of Heaven

Christopher Gorham stars as Mormon missionary John Groberg in Christian biopic 'The Other Side of Heaven.'

Most Viewed: 'New Moon' crosses $200 million(4810 views) Invictus(2088 views) The costs of H’w’d spending(1723 views) Hollywood sea of change(1434 views) Football player elbows vampires on Turkey day(670 views) Pearce hops on to 'Hungry Rabbit Jumps'(667 views)

Pic opens on the BYU campus, circa 1953, as Groberg (Christopher Gorham) swoons over his true love Jean (Anne Hathaway) and prepares for his impending missionary assignment. That journey sends him to the remote island of Tonga, where, with few resources and no knowledge of the native tongue, he is instructed to "build a kingdom" of thriving Mormon communities. That the 19-year-old Groberg, over two-and-a-half years, accomplished this while combating all manner of hardship and natural disaster, should make for a compelling entertainment, and it does, up to a point.

Pic takes a refreshingly different stance on missionaries (they're not all out to wreck indigenous cultures) and natives (they're not all savages) than Hollywood has in the past. Specifically, Davis depicts Tongan customs with warmth and respect, and he endorses the benefits of missionary work without pushing too hard to make us feel the same way.

But on a fundamental level, "The Other Side of Heaven" is one of those soft-peddled, "A Beautiful Mind"-style biopics that takes a remarkable true-life story and proceeds to file down its sharp edges and splash light on its murky, gray areas until all you have left is pretty conventional Hollywood fare. As presented here, the very green Groberg meets with only a modicum of resistance from the native Tongans, quickly ingratiating himself by performing one miraculous good deed after another. The film then becomes repetitious, with each new scene presenting some dramatic malady (wounded children, lockjaw, et al.) befalling one or more of the villagers and Groberg coming to the rescue. Pic always seems at a distance from Groberg. Despite the daunting challenges he faces -- including having his feet chewed open by hungry rats and nearly starving to death in the aftermath of a hurricane -- we never see him let his guard down or doubt his faith. Problems are partly due to the condensing of a long, complex biography into a two-hour film. But in adapting Groberg's own "In the Eye of the Storm," writer-director Davis has glossed over most of the quieter, incidental moments of Groberg's experience that might have brought viewers closer to the character.

The focus here is on rousing, sensational events with little sense of what Groberg was really like as a person, in all his foibles and insecurities and doubts.

Gorham's performance, however, almost makes you forget how shallowly his character has been conceived. Performance by up-and-comer Hathaway ("The Princess Diaries") consists of little more than occasional voiced-over readings of Jean's love letters.

Camera (color), Brian Breheny; editor, Steven Ramirez; music, Kevin Kiner; production designer, Rick Kofoed; visual effects, John Gajdecki; casting, Gretchen Rennell Court, Christina Asher. Reviewed at Broadway Center, Salt Lake City, Jan. 10, 2002. MPAA Rating: PG. Running time: 113 MIN.