This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir plays a supporting role in the Utah-made melodrama "Singing With Angels," providing inspiration and music for a woman in crisis.
Aubrey Larson (played by Sarah Kent) is a five-year member of the venerable choir who must make a crucial life decision: whether to leave the choir and uproot her family to move from Utah to Arizona, where her mother-in-law (Anne Sward) is facing a recurrence of cancer. Aubrey reflects, through flashbacks, on her time with the choir, particularly when music and her faith saw her through hardships — including her daughter (Bailee Michelle Johnson) suffering a ruptured appendix just before Aubrey's audition, or her husband, Jason (Scott Christopher), losing his job right before the choir's tour.
The melodrama of Brittany Wiscombe's script, as obstacle after obstacle is placed in Aubrey's path, gets a bit heavy-handed. (With minimal rewriting, this could be a horror movie about a woman to whom a series of calamities happens when she joins the choir.)
Where Wiscombe and her brother, director Brian Brough, succeed is in detailing the behind-the-scenes mechanics of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which granted filmmakers access to its music library and rehearsal space, and re-enacting heartwarming stories of how the choir has touched audiences around the world.
'Singing With Angels'
Opens Friday, March 11, in area theaters; rated PG for thematic elements and an accident scene; 94 minutes.