FIRST REFORMED

Out 5 NOVEMBER / Cert 15 / 113 Mins

Within First Reformed’s first 15 minutes, ethan Hawke’s pastor, toller, is talking about the blackness inside of us. Five minutes later he’s pissing blood. “My petty ailments have made me bad-tempered,” he says, in voiceover. “No sooner than I shut my eyes, desolation came upon me.” If it wasn’t already apparent, First Reformed is written and directed by the man who wrote Taxi Driver. Forty-two years later and Paul Schrader comes fullcircle with this beautiful monstrosity about a climate change-obsessed young man (Philip ettinger) who wants his wife (Amanda Seyfried) to have their baby aborted, unable to bring life into a world faced with irreversible environmental collapse. So it’s a cheery old film. Wonderfully still and quiet, it nevertheless goes nuts, with a top-class Hawke amusingly nihilistic. Paul Schrader is one of a kind.