Film: 'First Reformed'

I can see why some might take against this film as being ponderous, over-solemn and with perhaps some gaps in the narrative. Comparisons have been made with Bergman and I think that's fair. I have to say that I was impressed while readily accepting that perhaps it caters for a niche taste, though there has been a welcome wide approval for it.

Ethan Hawke is a minister in an historic, smallish church of First Reformed (Calvinist) denomination somewhere in New York state, He has a sparse congregation of worshippers while his church is supervised by the nearby, much larger. well-attended church run by 'Abundant Life' organisation whose minister (Cedric Antonio Kyles) has concerns about the Hawke character's welfare, both mental and physical, mightily aggravated when he discovers that the latter has potentially serious body health issues.

But before all this is revealed Hawke has had a request from one of his small congregation (Amanda Seyfried - whom I'll be seeing shortly in 'Mamma Mia 2') to have a word with her husband who is unhappy about her pregnancy. When he does, the husband (Philip Ettinger) opens up about his environmentalist activism, having moved from Canada where he served time in prison for his campaigning. All this comes on top of Hawke's own buried uncertainties regarding his own internal struggles, and out of interest he makes a deeper investigation into the environment aspect himself, it eventually becoming almost obsessive, especially when he discovers that the boss of one of the area's leading industrial polluters is also a major donor towards 'Abundant Life' and through it, a supporter of his own church.

Much of the film deals with 'below-the-surface' emotions. Hawke has not only concerns about his own health but has surviving guilt about the failure of his marriage which had collapsed some time before.   

There is quite a lot of tension throughout the film (and my God, it really does take two or three extremely bleak turns) which includes a couple of brief but graphically violent scenes. In fact the suspense keeps on building until the final quarter hour or so when the tautness reaches well-near snapping point. Just before this happens there's a rather bizarre sequence, almost hallucinatory, which some may consider out of character with the rest of the film. If people can't make head nor tail of that short section they are yet more likely to feel unsatisfied with the manner of the film's actual ending, of which I'll say no more! 

It's a totally different kind of role for Ethan Hawke, here playing a man with internal struggles on several levels, a part in which I think he manages to convince. Amanda Seyfried was, in my opinion, exceptional in her smaller yet quite substantial role.

Although I knew the name of director Paul Shrader I was most surprised to find that I've seen none of his films since 'The Company of Strangers' of 1990. Before that he made 'American Gigolo' and 'Cat People'.

It's a film rather out of the ordinary - intriguing (though not without one or two exasperations) - one to linger in the memory more than most films, and definitely well executed overall.................7.

(IMDb................7.7 / Rotten Tomatoes............8.4)