Facing up to a fearsome destiny
The fictional title church of Paul Schrader’s transcendent drama First Reformed is an immaculate house of worship in upstate New York, with gleaming white pews that belie the 250 years it has stood witness to the Calvinist Christian faith.
The church’s pastor, the Rev. Ernest Toller (Ethan Hawke) has secrets of his own. An exmilitary chaplain, Toller is mourning the death of his soldier son and the subsequent collapse of his marriage. He also feels guilty about a recent affair with the choir director (Victoria Hill) of nearby megachurch Abundant Life, which didn’t end well.
Toller’s heaviest burden may be his apparent loss of faith. First Reformed is not-so-jokingly referred to as the “tourist church” by Abundant Life’s Pastor Jeffers (Cedric Kyles, AKA Cedric the Entertainer), because it takes in more money selling souvenirs than it does from the collection plate passed to its dwindling flock.
The pastor stoically carries on, much like the title cleric of Dia
ry of a Country Priest, the Robert Bresson film that inspired writer/director Schrader, a filmmaker whom critics had almost despaired of, who has made his best film since Afflic
tion in 1997. That movie, like this one, was set in winter, with a similar dynamic about a man facing up to a fearsome destiny.
Toller finds a soul in greater distress than his own: environmental activist Michael (Philip Ettinger), who recoils at the thought of impending doom wrought by global warming. Michael’s wife, Mary (Amanda Seyfried), is pregnant, and he doubts the wisdom of bringing a child into a dying world.
Schrader is a master of austere stories of existential crisis, which he’s deepened here with his genuine concerns about environmental ruination. Hawke is his most excellent avatar, quietly expressing the pain of a man torn between forbearance and extreme measures in the face of a great wrong.