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It;s a nice change of pace to see a Mormon film that doesn't completely rely on bad actors and a trite story of naive missionaries in the urban jungle. In Mitch Davis's The Other Side of Heaven, his naive missionary is sent to the real Jungle, a tiny set of islands on the outskirts of the Tongan chain of islands, where he doesn't know the language, doesn't have any support from Utah, and is beaten down by bad weather and exotic illnesses. Based on a true story from the 1950s, this is a lush film filled with good performances, particularly from the natives, who support John Groberg well throughout. Davis wisely keeps the focus relatively lean when it comes to Mormon scripture and mythology, and lets the travails of living in Tonga buttress his movie.
