First Reformed

Ethan Hawke plays an alcoholic, emotionally tormented, cancer-plagued pastor in Paul Schrader’s bleak, character-driven drama. In upstate New York, Reverend Ernst Toller (Hawke) impassively tends an old Dutch Reform church, best known for its historical importance. Years ago, it was a stop on the Underground Railroad for escaped, Canada-bound slaves. Now, it’s a tourist attraction, run as an adjunct to Abundant Life, a larger Protestant mega-church, headed by charismatic Pastor Joel Jeffers (Cedric the Entertainer). When one of Rev. Toller’s few parishioners, Mary (Amanda Seyfried), asks him to counsel her troubled, environmentalist husband Michael (Philip Ettinger), he learns that Mary is pregnant and that Michael wants her to get an abortion because he feels it’s immoral to bring another child onto this decaying, doomed planet. “Can God forgive us for what we’ve done to this world?” Michael asks Toller. Meanwhile, Balq (Michael Gaston), a corrupt industrialist whose firm is responsible for much of the region’s pollution, is sponsoring the 250th birthday and re-consecration of Rev. Toller’s tiny country church. Internally, Toller, a former military chaplain, suffers from the death of his only son, which in turn led to the dissolution of his marriage. In a moment of loneliness/weakness, he had a brief affair with the choir director (Victoria Hill), which he now regrets. Many critics were impressed with First Reformed, but I felt that Schrader’s melancholy, sadly ineffectual antagonist was a rambling character whose points were studiously obvious, resulting in austere, anguished despair. Still, this should be considered a strong optional purchase. (S. Granger)