Written and Directed by Paul Schrader
**** (four stars)
RATED R
It feels more than coincidental that after returning home from seeing Writer/Director Paul Schrader's quietly explosive "First Reformed," that I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and came across a headline from USA Today in reference to the recent suicides from both fashion designer Kate Spade and chef/author/television personality Anthony Bourdain. The title read as follows: "Americans Are Depressed And Suicidal Because Something Is Wrong With Our Culture."
Amen to that.
Dear readers, it is of no secret or revelation to any of you out there that we are living in extraordinarily anxiety ridden times, and without question, the rapid increase entirely due to the reality TV performer currently occupying The White House. The dark side of history is rancorously repeating itself in horrifically dramatic fashion with our nation becoming increasingly isolationist upon the world's stage, and more fascistic and nationalist internally, despite an elevated level of resistance. With our level of discourse breaking down ferociously, we have reached the through-the-looking-glass era of not simply the inexplicable concept of "post-truth," but more tragically, a level of tribalism that really only serves to eliminate any sense of nuance, making conversations irrelevant as everything is placed into an "EITHER/OR" category, completely detonating the complexities of the human experience.
With regards to the topics of religion, morality and spirituality in the 21st century, the tribalism, as far as I am concerned, has been so terribly co-opted and bastardized, that the so-called discussion being had are shamelessly simplistic, so shameful especially when exploring topics that are, by their nature, infinite.
I have long spoken about our cultural sense of spiritual decay upon this blogsite and how the movies have addressed this specific quality of American life but I feel that what Paul Schrader has achieved with his latest film is to force audiences back into having spirited, meaningful, engaged conversations and debates about our place in existence that extends far beyond proclaiming that absolutely anyone who believes in God to being unintelligent or one that has weaponized theology to advance an intolerant agenda. These are topics too complex to be handled so easily. These are topics to be rigorously wrestled with and Paul Schrader's "First Reformed" is indeed a film exceedingly worthy of its subject matter as he has unleashed a work of disturbingly wrenching anguish, confusion, frustration, anger, powerful doubt and absolution.
Paul Schrader's "First Reformed" stars Ethan Hawke in one of the finest performances of his entire career as Reverend Ernst Toller, a pastor at a tiny upstate New York parish, once a stop on the Underground Railroad and is a current tourist attraction yet a barely present congregation, that is soon to reach its 250th anniversary and reconsecration ceremony.
Toller, a former military chaplain, is a solitary figure, undergoing a crisis of faith as he continuously wrestles with the demons of his past from his failed marriage, and the death of his son as a soldier in Iraq to his current pressures at maintaining his parish while being seated in the immense shadow of the parent mega-church, Abundant Life with its 5000 person congregation, state of the art facilities, charismatic Pastor Jeffers (a surprisingly excellent dramatic performance by Cedric Kyles, most famously known as Cedric The Entertainer) and shadowy financial backer/petroleum executive (Michael Gaston). In his solitude, Toller takes to alcohol and has diligently committed himself to keeping a handwritten journal over the time span of one year to chronicle all of his epiphanies, doubts, fears, and revelations, making the intense intimacy of the experience akin to a consistent source of prayer.
Amanda Seyfried portrays Mary, a pregnant member of Toller's diminishing congregation who asks the troubled pastor for assistance with counseling her husband Michael (Philip Ettinger), a radical environmentalist who strongly feels against the idea of bringing a child into a world he reasons is about to collapse. This fateful meeting brings all of the elements of Toller's world crashing together, leading to a spiritual crisis that may prove to be unrepentantly cataclysmic.
Despite the turbulence of the story and material overall, Paul Schrader's "First Reformed" is a somber, measured, often meditative experience. It is a quiet film, filled with an almost Kubrick-ian stillness yet it is one where that aforementioned turbulence is always simmering under the surface and gradually begins to brood and boil over as if we were regarding a thriller.
In fact, I was often reminded of Writer/Director Darren Aronofsky's theological head spinner horror show "mother!" (2017) and notably, Writer/Director Jeff Nichols' excellent psychological thriller "Take Shelter" (2011), about a man (played by Michael Shannon) who obsessively builds a bomb shelter in his backyard to potentially survive the apocalypse he is certain is forthcoming yet in actuality, he maybe experiencing hereditary schizophrenia. Reverend Toller feels to be cut from a similar cloth as his odyssey showcases a certain descent into spiritual, physical and psychological despair and meltdown as he attempts to reconcile the full purpose of his life and of existence itself in a world where his personal tragedies have occurred and have left him a more isolated individual, ready to keep people at arms length, possibly to shield them from his own spiritual torment.
Essentially, the spiritual conceit and internal struggle of existing within a world that happens to not adhere to one's personal expectations is Paul Schrader's primary theme, most often tackled in collaboration with Martin Scorsese in "Taxi Driver" (1976)," "The Last Temptation Of Christ" (1989) and "Bringing Out The Dead" (1999), all of which Schrader wrote. With "First Reformed," the character of Reverend Toller, and the film as a whole, serves brilliantly as a companion character and piece to figures and themes contained in all three Scorsese films (possibly resembling "Bringing Out The Dead" the most), as the spiritual qualities, from the story and concepts to the religious allegories and symbolism contained throughout, are the engine in which the personal stories are divulged.
Comparisons between Reverend Toller and Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) from "Taxi Driver" have already been made in some reviews of "First Reformed," but again, I tend to think of Toller as being more similar to the insomniac, burnt out, grief stricken ambulance paramedic Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage) in "Bringing Out The Dead," a taciturn man in the role of a caretaker, perhaps too sensitive for the mad dog world that surrounds him yet fitfully carries onwards hoping to help and to heal while desperately attempting to retain his sanity. But then...for that matter, perhaps Toller is not solely similar to Frank Pierce but maybe what if Pierce was unable to keep his wits together and drifted into madness a la Bickle?
Yes...that's it! This is the mental, emotional and spiritual plane where Toller lives, one where personal and global conflicts and tragedies dare to clash against his personal belief system as Pastor, making his allegiance to his faith worth fighting for...even when his health, sanity and humanity are compromised.
It would not be any stretch to take in the Biblical allegory contained in the characters of the young married couple that prove to be the ultimate catalyst for Reverend Toller's story and conflict. Who else is the pregnant Mary but a reference to Mother Mary herself? And therefore, who else is the eco-warrior Michael but a Earthly version of the archangel, the protector and leader of the forces of good against evil? Their allegorical roles are purposeful, lending "First Reformed" an element of the surreal (especially within one bizarre sequence late in the film as well as its ambiguous ending moments) that works powerfully alongside the tangible, ultimately making Reverend Toller's slow unraveling provocatively urgent, palpable and understandable.
Ethan Hawke's performance is masterful and unprecedented for him as I simply do not recall a time when he has dug this deeply as well as created a character so unlike what we tend to expect from him. Reverend Toller certainly carries the same level of fierce intelligence and spirited, fervent philosophical qualities as Hawke's celebrated past characters from Director Peter Weir's "Dead Poet's Society" (1989) to most certainly, several of his collaborations with Writer/Director Richard Linklater from his one sequence in the animated dream state of "Waking Life" (2001), to the extended works in "Boyhood" (2014) and the romantic trilogy of "Before Sunrise" (1995), "Before Sunset" (2004) and "Before Midnight" (2013).
In those features, Hawke portrayed characters, right or wrong, who displayed a full command of their respective levels of intellect as well as a strict connection to their worldviews. But with his work in "First Reformed," we see a Ethan Hawke character whose intellect, worldview and overall faith in himself and his established belief system is challenged to the point where everything he believes can potentially fail him and the effect is gradually crippling. In doing so, Hawke's performance is one where all of his standard mannerisms have been extinguished leaving him a compelling study of coiled tension, as he feverishly tries to keep himself together as his interior anguish overtakes him.
Where the philosophical conversation and debate between Toller and Michael early in the film invigorates him, Ethan Hawke, through a careful, steady, nearly minimalist unveiling, delivers a performance where he is rigorously wrestling with his faith and reason in an environment, both local and global, that may no longer have interest or use in someone like him. And it is that precise level of societal spiritual decay that confounds him and leads him into an existential crisis that propels him down a path he may have never conceptualized that he would ever embark upon in the first place.
Reverend Toller is a character looking out into the world and wondering aloud what has happened to us as a species. What have we become? How can we claim at all to be children of God if we treat his Kingdom with such vulgar disregard? And even then, is it possibly God's plan to destroy His own creation and if it is, then what is Toller's purpose at all in this world? The answers he provides for himself are chilling to say the least and Ethan Hawke meets each moment with superb authenticity, authority and audacity and I seriously hope that he is remembered during awards season.
Paul Schrader's "First Reformed" not a histrionic experience whatsoever. This is decidedly NOT a "fire and brimstone" kind of film. I wish for you to think of what Schrader has achieved as being akin to a sermon--albeit an intensely solemn, disquieting sermon that if fully designed for audiences to become engaged with, to discuss and debate, to get angry with and to even be confused by. Schrader knows fully well that there are no easy answers to be had in a film like this one and how wonderful it is to have a filmmaker of his pedigree in our sequel/comic book/special effects driven cinematic era who feels that it is imperative to create a work that speaks directly to the current, turbulent pulse of modern society.
And how refreshing and oddly comforting it is to have a film such as this, struggling right along with us.
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