The Girl Who Believes in Miracles

The Girl Who Believes in Miracles (2021) embodies the worst vices of faith-based drama in particular and religion in general. It’s not just that the title character goes around resurrecting dead animals like a Traveling Pet Sematary and restoring sight to the blind like a modern-day Simon Magus. It’s mostly that co-writer/director Richard Correll handles this material with a literalism of biblical proportions.

This is a movie that condones kidnapping a girl with a brain tumor from the hospital, driving her through a storm to a secluded spot in the woods, and praying for a miracle. From what I’ve seen on TV, hospitals have chapels — why not pray there? Despite being omnipresent, this particular place in the forest apparently has “some special meaning” for God. Maybe He has a better signal there?

Sara Hopkins (Austyn Johnson) not only believes in, but uses and abuses the power of prayer. There’s nothing she won’t pray for. Like his older brother’s soccer team winning the game. Her prayer, however, is only good for one goal. “You said that if I prayed a lot, we would win,” Sara complains to her grandfather (Peter Coyote). It never occurs to her that maybe somebody on the other team prayed harder — or, more likely, that God doesn’t give two shits about peewee soccer.

Later that day, Sara finds a dead bird on the shore of a lake and prays it back to life. Not only is her prayer answered but also, as if to compensate her for the soccer fiasco, God reveals Himself to her in the guise of a “young and kind” man who may or may not have been “wearing a T-shirt and jeans.” Sara’s story is initially met with disbelief. “Danny and Cindy saw it happen and they don’t even believe it. They told Mum that it was probably a strange reflection in the water, or the bird was probably dazed or sick.” Perhaps it was just pining for the fjords.

Nevertheless, Sara soon graduates to resurrecting larger animals — specifically the local bully’s dog, whose heart grows three sizes fol...