Artists are often deliberately esoteric, as if limiting the number of
people who understand their work will somehow increase its value. For example, I read the following sentence in an article about art forgeries, describing one of the top experts in the field: "Martin, a tall man with lumber-beam shoulders, has a voice that never surpasses a murmur." Momentarily confused, I had to read it twice, sidetracked by the murmuring lumber beams. Oh, I get it -- why not just say he had broad shoulders and spoke in a low voice?
"First Reformed," the new film by director Paul Schrader starring Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried, goes the esoteric route whole hog. In fact, one reviewer (Roger Ebert.com) praises the film as "very special.... for a certain, inevitably rather limited audience." Naturally I was intrigued, wondering if I was special enough to be part of that audience. Turns out I was -- and I wasn't, mostly because Schrader does a lot of murmuring lumber-beaming in the telling of his story.
Simply put, small-town pastor Ernst Toller (Hawke), depressed after his soldier son dies in Iraq and his marriage ends, tends to his small flock at a 250-year-old church in upstate New York that hardly anyone attends. He lives alone and drinks heavily while writing his darkest thoughts in a journal each night. One day Mary, a young parishioner (Seyfried), approaches and asks him to counsel her husband Michael (Phillip Ettinger), a just-sprung-from-Canadian-prison climate-change activist who is suicidal over the continuing degradation of the planet. Mary is pregnant and Michael questions the validity of bringing a new life into an ever-worsening world.
There is a lot of talk. Lots and lots of talk, about God and the meaning of life and climate change and pollution. It must have taken quite a while for everyone to learn their parts.
I can't say more about what happens since I don't want to be a spoiler and besides, I'm not 100% sure. (The director also isn't sure, and admitted as much in an interview.) But I will say there are superb performances by the entire cast and stunning images throughout, be it a lovely country church or a glittering toxic waste dump. There are also gruesome scenes of a body in decline from a severe illness. (A close-up of Pepto-Bismol bubbling in a glass of whiskey will stay with me forever, tainting both.) There's a very long kiss, possibly longer than the memorable one between Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair. And let's not forget that head blown off in the snow. All of this is accompanied by horror-movie music.
The film ends before you're ready. See it if you're special enough.
"First Reformed," the new film by director Paul Schrader starring Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried, goes the esoteric route whole hog. In fact, one reviewer (Roger Ebert.com) praises the film as "very special.... for a certain, inevitably rather limited audience." Naturally I was intrigued, wondering if I was special enough to be part of that audience. Turns out I was -- and I wasn't, mostly because Schrader does a lot of murmuring lumber-beaming in the telling of his story.
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| Pastor Toller (Ethan Hawke) wears a worried expression throughout. |
There is a lot of talk. Lots and lots of talk, about God and the meaning of life and climate change and pollution. It must have taken quite a while for everyone to learn their parts.
I can't say more about what happens since I don't want to be a spoiler and besides, I'm not 100% sure. (The director also isn't sure, and admitted as much in an interview.) But I will say there are superb performances by the entire cast and stunning images throughout, be it a lovely country church or a glittering toxic waste dump. There are also gruesome scenes of a body in decline from a severe illness. (A close-up of Pepto-Bismol bubbling in a glass of whiskey will stay with me forever, tainting both.) There's a very long kiss, possibly longer than the memorable one between Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair. And let's not forget that head blown off in the snow. All of this is accompanied by horror-movie music.
The film ends before you're ready. See it if you're special enough.
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