Image courtesy A24.
9/10 First Reformed is turning heads and starting conversations, and that’s what’ll get you in the door. What’ll keep you on the edge of your seat is a textbook work of art, a film in which every frame is completely perfect.
At a rural historical church somewhere in the Tri-State area, Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke) has lost the ability to pray. He keeps a nightly journal about his crisis of faith, and will frequently read it as narration over the action of the preceding day. One of his parishioners, Mary (Amanda Seyfried), requests Toller’s help in counseling her husband Michael (Philip Ettinger), a radical environmentalist who wants her to terminate their pregnancy because he thinks it would be irresponsible to bring a child to term.
Toller drinks heavily as he writes. He says that he will not allow himself to remove entries in his journal or scratch out even a single word, but each night we see him, he is starting on a blank page, and nothing seems to have been written on the opposite side, casting extreme doubt on his honesty as a narrator. As his physical and mental health deteriorates, he writes and narrates less and less frequently and his onscreen experiences become more and more bizarre.
Reel Entropy 