10 / 10
First Reformed is Paul Schrader’s 2017 American indie drama and one of the strongest works in the director’s serious filmography. The film depicts Reverend Ernst Toller, the minister of a historic but failing church in upstate New York, whose pastoral engagement with a troubled environmental activist produces accumulating spiritual and political crisis. Ethan Hawke plays Reverend Toller. Amanda Seyfried plays Mary, the pregnant wife of the activist. The screenplay was written by Schrader. The film was produced by Killer Films and released in May 2018 after serious festival circuit attention. The work received Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
The film works as religious drama and as study in the conditions of contemporary American spiritual and political crisis. The work refuses the dramatic structure that mainstream religious cinema typically deploys. The narrative organizes around Toller’s accumulating engagement with environmental crisis material that exceeds his theological background’s capacity to address. The structural design uses 1.37:1 narrow aspect ratio, sustained restrained cinematography, and Schrader’s distinctive transcendental approach to develop content that conventional cinema cannot match. The work continues Schrader’s career-long engagement with the cinema of transcendence that the director has developed across decades of both filmmaking and critical writing.
The Hawke Performance
Ethan Hawke’s performance as Reverend Toller is among the great central performances in contemporary American indie cinema. The character works through sustained controlled affect that the role’s spiritual position requires. The actor establishes Toller’s particular intellectual seriousness, his accumulated grief, and his particular relationship to religious vocation through accumulated observed behavior rather than through dramatic display.
The performance traces Toller’s accumulating crisis across the runtime through distinct physical and behavioral deterioration. The actor demonstrates increasing physical illness, accumulating spiritual exhaustion, and gradual ideological transformation. The journal voice-over that Toller maintains across the runtime works as both immediate dramatic content and as broader argumentative material about how individuals process accumulating crisis. The performance demonstrates how restrained committed performance can carry sustained spiritual and political content.
For Writers
Restrained committed performance can carry sustained spiritual and political content. First Reformed’s Hawke performance maintains contained external register while developing accumulating internal crisis. This applies to fiction. Consider whether your work’s serious content works through restrained performance or through dramatic display. Restrained approaches require character work that supports the restraint without making the work appear emotionally inert.
The Schrader Theological Structure
The film sits within Schrader’s distinctive theological background that the director has developed across his career as both filmmaker and critic. The director’s 1972 critical study Transcendental Style in Film analyzed religious cinema by directors including Ozu, Bresson, and Dreyer. First Reformed represents Schrader’s most direct application of the principles he had analyzed in that earlier critical work to his own creative production.
The theological background also works as structural argument. The film argues that contemporary American religious institutions face conditions that traditional theological structures cannot adequately address. Toller’s particular crisis emerges from the gap between his received theological background and the environmental crisis that exceeds the structure’s capacity. The work demonstrates how directorial intellectual development can inform creative production. Schrader’s accumulated critical and creative engagement with religious cinema across decades produces work that single-engagement productions could not match.
For Writers
Accumulated intellectual development can inform creative production in ways that single-engagement work cannot match. First Reformed represents Schrader’s most direct creative application of his decades-long critical engagement with religious cinema. This applies to creative work broadly. Consider whether your work benefits from accumulated intellectual development or works effectively through more limited preparation.
The Closing Sequence
The film’s closing sequence has produced sustained critical engagement through its distinct structural approach. Toller has prepared for a violent action at the church’s reconsecration ceremony. Mary’s arrival prevents the violent action. The two characters embrace in a sequence that the cinematography handles through particular elevated framing that suggests both literal embrace and broader spiritual reconciliation. The film ends without conventional dramatic resolution.
The structural design refuses to determine whether the closing sequence represents actual reconciliation or Toller’s dying vision. The audience can construct interpretation that treats the embrace as literal event. Alternative interpretations treating the sequence as Toller’s death vision also support the depicted content. The work refuses to authorize any single interpretation. The technique has produced wide critical interpretation including readings that emphasize transcendental possibility, readings that emphasize despair, and readings that emphasize the irreducible ambiguity itself.
For Writers
Closing sequences can produce sustained critical engagement through structural ambiguity. First Reformed’s closing embrace refuses to authorize single interpretation about reconciliation or vision. This applies to fiction. Consider whether your closing sequences support multiple interpretations or impose single reading. Multiple-interpretation closings require preparation that the ambiguity reads as deliberate engagement.
Craft Note
Schrader’s structural decision to apply his decades-long critical engagement with transcendental cinema to First Reformed required careful preparation that exceeds typical screenplay development. The director drew from his critical analysis of Ozu, Bresson, and Dreyer in developing the work’s particular formal approach. The 1.37:1 narrow aspect ratio, the sustained restrained cinematography, and the distinctive pacing all reflect Schrader’s accumulated theoretical understanding of transcendental cinema. The completed film works because the preparation supported the structural ambition across all production departments. The lesson applies to creative work broadly. Long-term intellectual development can inform creative production in ways that produce work no shorter-term preparation could generate.
Verdict
First Reformed is one of the strongest American religious dramas of any period and one of the principal works in Paul Schrader’s serious filmography. The Hawke performance carries sustained spiritual and political content through restrained committed work. The Schrader theological background represents the director’s most direct creative application of his decades-long critical engagement with transcendental cinema. The closing sequence produces sustained critical engagement through structural ambiguity. The work is essential viewing for audiences interested in American religious cinema, in Schrader’s filmography, in transcendental cinema generally, or in films that systematically refuse resolved interpretation in favor of sustained spiritual and political ambiguity.
FAQ
How does First Reformed compare to other Schrader films?
First Reformed represents the peak of Schrader’s directorial career. The director’s earlier work including Taxi Driver (screenplay, 1976), Affliction (1997), and Mishima (1985) works at related register but had not reached First Reformed’s particular synthesis of formal commitment and dramatic content.
Should I read Schrader’s Transcendental Style in Film before watching the film?
Either order works. The 1972 critical study provides structure that deepens engagement with First Reformed’s formal choices. Reading the study after watching the film produces appreciation for the director’s intellectual development across decades.
How does the film handle its religious content?
The film handles religious content through committed engagement rather than through skeptical critique. The work sits within Christian theological background while exploring the structure’s limits. Viewers approaching the work should expect serious engagement with religious material.
How does the film handle its environmental content?
The film handles environmental crisis as legitimate spiritual and moral concern rather than as decorative political content. The depicted environmental material works with sufficient specificity to engage viewers concerned with the depicted issues.
How does the runtime function?
The film runs approximately one hundred thirteen minutes. The compressed runtime supports the concentrated spiritual and political content. The runtime is appropriate to the work’s ambitions.
What is the cultural impact of the film?
First Reformed produced wide cultural impact through critical engagement and Academy Award recognition. The work has continued Schrader’s reputation as one of the principal contemporary American directors engaging with religious material.