The white-steepled church at the heart of First Reformed, an embodiment of old American mainstream Protestantism, is now a sideshow. Preserved as if in amber by the sprawling nearby megachurch, First Reformed is more or less a tourist destination. It attracts few worshipers at Sunday services—most folks nowadays prefer the auditorium-size megachurch with its giant video screens and bad pop music. A hiding place for escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad, First Reformed’s past is impressive even if its future might mean nothing more than bragging rights for a wealthy patron, an energy corporation CEO.
The pastor, Rev. Toller (Ethan Hawke), is burdened, among other things, by the weight of his relative unimportance. The boss at the megachurch calls the shots and, while not a bad man, runs the institution like a business. But even if God is laconic, Toller still hears the call of a spiritual mission and is troubled over what to do. His voiceover at the onset indicates that all is not right. He speaks of keeping a journal in longhand, every stroke registering emotion as no keypad could. He promises to show himself no mercy through his words and to stop writing after one year is up. His tone suggests the clock is running down.
Thought-provoking and unsettling, First Reformed is written and directed by Paul Schrader, author of the screenplays for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. The white-steepled church, with its elegantly austere hard-edged surfaces and white-walled interiors, sets a cool and unrelenting emotional tone sustained throughout the film by a minimal color palette. Individuals stand in stark relief against the muted backdrops. Living almost monastically in his spartan rectory, Toller prays by a single candle in a darkened white room and reads the Bible or Thomas Merton under the dim glow of a desk lamp. When he finds the body of a parishioner who killed himself with a shotgun, the bloody corpse stands out on a snow field under a pale winter sky.
The suicide was the husband of one of Toller’s few parishioners (Amanda Seyfried). He was an ardent environmentalist despairing over a future of rising sea levels, extreme storms and famine caused by climate change. As it happens, the corporation run by Toller’s benefactor is ranked with the world’s worst polluters. The CEO is smug and small spirited, a global warming denier. Whispering in Toller’s ear, the subversive message of Christianity, often overlooked by institutional religion, calls him to wrestle with the powers of this world.
But perhaps Toller is in no condition to lift the sword of righteousness? He had advised his son to enlist after 911 but after the boy died in Iraq, his wife left but guilt remains. Despite pledging to show himself no mercy, Toller is in denial over failing health. He drinks to deaden the pain.
Hawke plays Toller as a serious man trying to keep a message of compassion alive in an exhausted society driven to extremism, a world of militant selfishness without privacy, of isolated individuals digitally connected and driven by fear. The natural world is a manifestation of God’s love, Toller reminds his boss at the megachurch, but the church would rather raise money and remain inoffensive to the powers of this world. Will martyrdom be the answer?
