FIRST REFORMED – Review

Writer/director Paul Schrader’s FIRST REFORMED is a spellbinding film, smart and suspenseful, one of the best so far this year. Ethan Hawke stars as Reverend Ernst Toller, the pastor of First Reformed, a modest Dutch church in upstate New York that had once served as a safe house for slaves as part of the Underground Railroad. Founded in 1767, the church is prepping for its 250^th anniversary reconsecration ceremony to be attended by various local leaders. Toller, haunted by his son’s death in Iraq and his subsequent divorce, leads a simple and lonely life, spending more time giving tours of the church’s historical grounds than actually preaching to the small handful of regular parishioners.  His life finds purpose when confronted by Mary (Amanda Seyfried) a desperate young woman named in need of his guidance. She is pregnant, but her husband Michael (Philip Ettinger), is demanding she have an abortion. Toller meets with Michael, a climate change obsessive convinced Earth will soon be reduced to a burning wasteland. Mary’s troubles become more dire when she discovers her husband’s suicide bomb vest in the garage. But Toller has his own problems. He’s peeing blood and his doctor suspects stomach cancer. He finds comfort only in booze and his writings in a journal where he scrawls out an increasingly disturbed longhand confession. Toller rejects Esther (Victoria Hill), a woman he was briefly involved with and who now leads the choir at Abundant Life, though she’s the only one who seems to care about his health.  Abundant Life is a nearby megachurch which owns First Reformed and is led by Joel Jeffers (Cedric Kyles, aka Cedric the Entertainer), a pastor who preaches a flashier brand of gospel built more around materialism and entertainment  than forgiveness of sins. Toller connects Abundant Life to what he sees as the immorality of the energy industry through Balq (Michael Gaston), the CEO of a company that donates heavily to the mega-church and is one of the sponsors of First Reformed’s upcoming anniversary ceremony. Balq’s firm, Toller uncovers to his horror, is one of the country’s leading polluters. Toller’s grip on reality loosens as he aims his righteous fury.

Paul Schrader, best known for directing AMERICAN GIGOLO, HARDCORE, CAT PEOPLE (and writing  TAXI DRIVER and ROLLING THUNDER) has been making serious and challenging films like FIRST REFORMED for decades, yet it’s the first of his films to play St. Louis screens since AUTO FOCUS in 2002.  It’s a powerful look at the mixing of faith and political activism and by combining Biblical prophecies with progressive principles about the fate of the earth and the terrorist strategies of Islamist fundamentalists, Schrader has created an timely and plausible tale. All of the performances are outstanding, especially a smartly-cast Cedric Lyles and an angelic Amanda Seyfried, but this is Ethan Hawke’s show and it’s the best performance I’ve ever seen him give. The actor does a magnificent job showing the inner turmoil and despair brewing inside Ernst Toller and he’s so good I can’t imagine anyone else in the role. Don’t miss FIRST REFORMED.

5 of 5 Stars

FIRST REFORMED opens in St. Louis June 1st at Landmark’s The Tivoli Theater and Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Theater