The
Other Side of Heaven brings to the screen the true
story of John Groberg, a Mormon missionary to Tonga from 1953
to 1956, based on his memoirs. The film follows a "the
adventures of" formula, with beautiful scenery, though
the movie was actually filmed in the Cook Islands, not Tonga.
The film begins in 1953 during a dance at Brigham Young University.
As a devout Mormon, nineteen-year-old John (played by Christopher
Gorham) is invited to become a missionary in Tonga, so he
pledges to his college sweetheart Jean Sabin (played by Anne
Hathaway) that he will remain loyal and marry her when he
returns. His family in Idaho Falls, Idaho, hug him goodbye,
and he takes a train to a port and thence boards a ship for
Pago Pago, American Samoa. From there, since there is no direct
ship for Tonga, he instead travels to Suva, Fiji. Without
a proper visa, he is incarcerated upon arrival along with
contraband livestock until the sound of his bugle alerts missionaries
at Suva of his presence. He then sails for Nuku`alofa, the
capital of the Kingdom of Tonga, where he meets Feki (played
by Joe Folau), who in turn accompanies him on an 800-mile
boat trip to an outlying island where he is assigned. Among
the perils that he confronts are the language, the customs,
the diseases, the weather, and a rival missionary. (Regarding
the language, writer-director Mitch Davis allows mispronunciations
of the name of the country, which is properly transliterated,
"Tong`a.") The heart of the film is how he surmounts
the many difficulties in an exemplary Christian manner, accomplishing
much more than the higher-ups in the church expected. Eventually,
his assignment ends, he leaves tearfully, and he returns to
marry his sweetheart in 1957. Titles at the end tell not only
of his subsequent life but also of his Tonga compatriots,
Feki and another Tongan, both of whom died of bone cancer
after later assisting in the construction of the airport at
Niue. Not an official product of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints, Mormon beliefs are presented without
rigidity, so the movie may serve a role in proselytization
for those who are offended neither by religion nor by the
"whites know best" presumptions, yet The Other
Side of Heaven is still an excellent adventure film.
MH
I
want to comment on this film
