Grace of My Heart

1996 | Allison Anders

I have no idea how many people have watched such an inspiring film called ‘Grace of My Heart.’ I first saw this film on HBO a few years ago. It tells a story of an aspiring artist Denise Waverly (Illeana Douglas) who has a dream that one day she’ll be a great singer, but she is not a beautiful girl nor has distinctive voice which seems to be a requirement for music industry.

However she can compose her own materials, and the record label wants her songs for their singers to sing. So she instead ends up writing and producing songs for other people.

In the film, we’ll see her life through good and bad, and the incidents that inspire her to write songs. Her story is very touching, compelling, and so moving. All the songs in the film are also incredibly good.

This film was written & directed by Allison Anders, accompanied by an excellent cast Illeana Douglas (If you’ve seen Picture Perfect or Stir of Echoes, you might remember her).

In this film she amazingly portrays the role of Denise Waverly, especially in the scene where she’s in the studio performing her sensational tune titled ‘God Give Me Strength.’ It’s just so emotional and so captivating with indescribable feelings.

The moment I finished watching its closing credits, I logged on to internet and ordered both DVD and CD soundtrack instantly. This film is deserved to be seen as much as possible! It’s kind of a good film that most people never heard of.

Unfortunately, the song ‘God Give Me Strength’ in the soundtrack is a different version which performed by Burt Bacharach & Elvis Costello who brilliantly wrote that song in the first place. How disappointing! The film version is probably the best song in the entire film.

After googling for a second, I finally found that the version featured in the film is not the voice of Illeana Douglas. Then I found the right one. Voilà! God give me strength performed by Kristen Vigard, for your listening pleasure. Also, don’t forget check out the amazing clip.