First Reformed
2017, 113 minutes, Digital, R
USA, UK, Australia
Language: English
Director: Paul Schrader
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, Cedric Antonio Kyles, Victoria Hill, and Philip Ettinger
Distributor: A24
With awards season in full swing, Paul Schrader’s much-lauded Maryland Film Festival selection, First Reformed returns to the SNF Parkway for a theatrical encore. Be sure not to miss this brooding masterpiece, featuring a stunning performance from Ethan Hawke that many predict will garner him an Oscar nomination.
Reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) is a solitary, middle-aged parish pastor at a small Dutch Reform church in upstate New York on the cusp of celebrating its 250th anniversary. Once a stop on the Underground Railroad, the church is now a tourist attraction catering to a dwindling congregation, eclipsed by its nearby parent church, Abundant Life, with its state-of-the-art facilities and 5,000-strong flock. When a pregnant parishioner (Amanda Seyfried) asks Reverend Toller to counsel her husband, a radical environmentalist, the clergyman finds himself plunged into his own tormented past, and equally despairing future, until he finds redemption in an act of grandiose violence. From writer-director Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver; American Gigolo; Affliction) comes a gripping thriller about a crisis of faith that is at once personal, political, and planetary.
4/4 STARS:
“First Reformed, a mesmerizingly austere drama of one man’s apocalyptic crisis of faith, feels like the movie Paul Schrader was put on this planet to make.”
— Ann Hornaday, Washington Post
“It is an exquisite piece of filmmaking and also a blunt, pulpy instrument, a despairing, fully sustained howl of a movie that is easily this director’s finest work in years.”
— Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
NYT CRITIC’S PICK:
“Mr. Schrader… is 71, and has had a long and varied career, but First Reformed nonetheless feels like a fresh discovery. More than that: an epiphany.”
— A.O. Scott, The New York Times
4/4 STARS:
“A stunning, enrapturing film, a crowning work by one of the American cinema’s most essential artists.”
— Godfrey Cheshire, RogerEbert.com
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