First Reformed (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ 

First Reformed (2017) – P. Schrader

Director Paul Schrader once wrote a book about transcendental cinema that focused on Bresson, Ozu, and Dreyer – and he echoes those masters in this film.  Ethan Hawke plays a Protestant minister struggling with his faith, so you could point more specifically to Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest or Bergman’s Winter Light as forerunners. We hear Hawke’s own tormented diary entries in voiceover, as in the former film. But Hawke’s Reverend Toller has his faith shaken by a more modern concern: the fact that humans are destroying the Earth via our inability to avert climate change (plus toxic waste, etc.). “Will God Forgive Us?” becomes his catchphrase. As if this wasn’t enough to worry about, Schrader digs deeper, also burdening Toller with an adult son who has died (in the Iraq war), a broken marriage, a drinking problem, an affair that ended poorly, and possibly stomach cancer.  His boss (Cedric the Entertainer) from the nearby mega-church is starting to have concerns about Toller’s fitness for duty (at the small historic church that is more tourist destination than real place of worship). Hawke does a solid job at playing the stoic, but we can see from his internet searches that he is quietly plotting something. At the same time, he befriends a young pregnant widow (Amanda Seyfried) who shares his worries about the environment (and also some trippy moments where Schrader lets his freak flag fly). And then, and then, and then, the movie rushes to a sudden surprise conclusion that I am still puzzling over.  Was it all just selfish pride, now diverted? Or are we seeing joy and relief at the discovery of communion of purpose and the end to loneliness? Where does God figure in this? Schrader does not give us any easy answers but a lot to mull over.