Forum Message

Topic: Re: First Reformed
Posted by: Joe Conneely
Date/Time: 16/07/18 20:37:00

Well - I don't think I could easily recommend this since it is pretty much 90 minutes of angst with a hanging ending that had most of the other ten people who were in the cinema with me at Westfield walking out shaking their heads!

Director./Writer Paul Schrader has always specialised in tortured souls and lead characters heading to self destruction (from Taxi Driver onwards through American Gigolo and Mishima) and this film probably represents the current high point of that trajectory.

Ethan Hawke in the lead role from the start conveys a man at his personal limits with a tragic prior history revealed as the file progresses. He is a pastor at a Protestant Church with a rich cultural history but poor congregation attendances and he shows limited experience of the religious vocational life. After encountering a pregnant parishioner with an unbalanced environmental activist boyfriend, the stage is set for the moral torment including a few gory scenes that takes up the rest of the film as different sides and emotions vie for his loyalties.

As a religious person I found it interesting but ultimately not a film I could readily recommend many to watch and I suspect it will have limited appeal to wider audiences! The fact that the next film Schrader is currently involved with in pre production is called "The Jesuit" probably shows this is not quite the end of this personal journey yet?


Entire Thread
TopicDate PostedPosted By
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