First Reformed (2018)
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First Reformed Movie Review
First Reformed is a 2018 indie drama film directed by Paul Schrader and starring Ethan Hawke. It’s a solid and effective, but somewhat disappointing drama.
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“Even a pastor needs a pastor“
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It follows a Protestant minister faced with questions of faith and morality while serving as pastor of a dwindling historical church. In terms of the plot itself, it’s very strong. Thematically, the film thrives as it explores religion, marriage in religious people and especially man’s destruction of nature and depression so well. The film was as its best when dealing with those serious issues and when it had a solemn tone to itself in the first half.
However, in the second half, the film stumbled quite a bit, at least to me it did. That’s because the newly introduced thriller elements did not work for me and the ending was disappointing, albeit the spiritual/magical sequence was incredibly effective and highly intriguing. But the film forgot to deal with those issues in the second half and it focused more on slow pace and cool visuals along with annoying thriller elements and it just did not work as well.
Amanda Seyfried is solid and Michael is an interesting, troubled character, but the highlight is naturally Reverend Ernst Toller who’s such an interesting, complex character really well realized and phenomenally depicted by Ethan Hawke who here gave a terrific, nuanced performance. He really found a solid niche for himself in these intriguing indie flicks recently and I do hope that he continues on this exciting new path in his career.
First Reformed definitely is scripted phenomenally and it features outstanding, thought-provoking dialogue. The standout scene is the conversation between Michael and the reverend and I do wish that the rest of the film was as moving or as sophisticated as that sequence.
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Paul Schrader’s direction is actually very strong and the film is polished and mostly well paced, although the second half is troublesome and slow in some areas. The film’s well shot and scored too, but it sometimes did not feel cinematic enough. Overall, I liked it, but the second half really needed more work.
First Reformed is very well acted by Ethan Hawke, so well directed by Paul Schrader and particularly well scripted and written, featuring outstanding, thought-provoking dialogue and some important themes. But the second half, despite one interesting spiritual sequence, stumbled owing to a less sophisticated approach, a disappointing ending and too many uninteresting thriller elements.
