Actors and other artists, as they get older or wish to be taken more seriously, often get behind the camera, either to produce or to direct. The movies made often turn out to be mere vanity projects: John Travolta’s “Battlefield Earth,” Mariah Carey’s “Glitter,” and, of course, Vanilla Ice’s “Cool as Ice.” That can’t be said for “Higher Ground,” the directorial debut of actress Vera Farmiga. It isn’t a “Good Night and Good Luck” (with George Clooney) or “A Bronx Tale” (Robert De Niro). But the unconventional, at times unsettling film does prove that Farmiga isn’t just a pretty face.

Carolyn S. Briggs loosely adapted her memoir “This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost,” along with, somewhat surprisingly, “Revenge of the Nerds” writer Tim Metcalfe. It’s a story about, as the subtitle suggests, how a person can embrace religious belief for years, building one’s life around it, only to discover it slipping away.