First Reformed (2018)

dir. and writ. Paul Schrader
feat. Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfreid, Cedric Antonio Kyles, Victoria Hill, Michael Ettinger, Michael Gaston

Paul Schrader presses down on Toller (Hawke), a man of the cloth who possibly hasn’t earned the outfit, and the viewer shares the squeeze. First Reformed takes the slowly spinning vice approach to drama, modern questions and doubts closing in slowly yet relentlessly, arousing curiosity at first, until it becomes hard to breathe. Toller, a damaged pastor, hides in an old church near Albany, NY, with a scant congregation and a handful of tourists who drop by for its landmark status and onetime role in the underground railroad. Winter has settled into his heart and the town, and he clings on just to get by, while somehow in the position of caregiver.

When pregnant Mary (Seyfreid) sits quietly in a pew and later approaches Toller to help her depressed eco-conscious husband, she sets into a motion a series of events that will challenge the already fragile pastor. To give much key plot would spoil the experience, but Toller is forced to both work to spreads his faith as well as confront that which it doesn’t provide. Schrader (both writing and directing) works a neat bit of magic, weaving positive hopeful messages of the church into the fabric of the story powerfully enough to warm the heart and make one reconsider harsh criticisms of that institution, then transforming bible quotes into mantras of militant protest that remind the viewer how the church has always fallen on the side of power and money, over goodness and glory, a survivalist at its core.

Ethan Hawke captivates in a way I haven’t seen, shouldering his character’s emotional and physical pain in wincing steady measure, the poison inside him barely contained in his rigid frame. As one who’s long seen Hawke as a touch overly enthusiastic, leaning hard into characters that would benefit from a gentler touch, the restraint here sears into my gut much like whatever is eating his. 

The film pits the worries for a sick planet against faith and love, and questions the possibility of finding peace and purpose in a world conflicted and corroding. Toller’s uneasy struggle to carry on illustrates how impossible it might be to find this sedate soulful center. But the spiritual power of human touch won't be extinguished and the ability to find another heart that can reach yours might be the true antidote to our time’s climatic and climactic crises.

But it’s an uncertain solution, not all will make it. And these dueling outcomes leave my stomach clenched long after finishing the film, my hand wavering as I weakly resist Toller’s instinct to reach for the whiskey bottle.