Paul Schrader has been an interesting figure in Hollywood, writing interesting stories and crafting interesting movies that create some thought as to what the characters are going through and how they become their character. It is all about a motive of studying and understanding the character than the story and he does a magnificent job of setting those characters up with an ambiguous background in such movies as Taxi Driver, American Gigolo and Bringing Out the Dead, even though the latter was a bit underwhelming. He has not made a good movie in 20 years until now, returning his roots of setting up a complex main character, in a weaving thread of themes and plot that makes the journey a fascinating experience and I was surprised as to how attentive I was to the whole movie.
Reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) is at the First Reformed Church in New York and he is writing thoughts in his journal and after a year, the journal will be destroyed. Toller was a former military chaplain struggling with the death of his son. He encouraged his son to enroll in the military, unfortunately, he was killed while deployed at war. He is living a peaceful but haunted life until he meets Mary (Amanda Seyfried), whose husband, Michael (Phillip Ettinger) is a radical environmentalist. He asks Toller to help Michael be counseled. Michael wants Mary to get an abortion because he does not want to have his child enter in a world where climate change is at the center of the world, creating hardship. Mary finds her husband's suicide vest in the garage, which Toller removes, and Toller promises to counsel him.
The less I say about the plot, the better because Schrader returns to his early oeuvre of work of centering of a male character's obsession about something. But, again, it is a character study of a person who is a priest but has problems such as drinking and overcoming with his struggles regarding his son's death. Is it a movie about faith? I think the movie has an astonishing contradiction between being truthful into what he is writing in the journal and his actions on-screen. He is a bit of an unreliable narrator in terms of what he is feeling, what he is thinking but we do not completely trust him. There's a line in the movie where a person says that a pastor also needs another pastor. It is like his demons are holding him back into something quite good, quite reminiscent of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. You struggle to connect to both characters.
Ethan Hawke has given one of his best performances of his career as a man who is inhibited in his own profession surrounded by the bleak atmosphere that he becomes quietly cold and remorseful in particular details throughout the movie. His character is a portrait of a person riddled with conflict with his faith and morality. It is basically psychological torment. Hawke is quietly building himself such a fantastic filmography in recent years. Amanda Seyfried usually becomes mis-used in movies but she gives a nuanced performance helping a person maybe two to confront their demons. And, Cedric "The Entertainer", who usually specializes in comedy, gives a good dramatic performance.
This is the definition of a Paul Schrader movie. So, if you loved movies based on his screenplays like Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, Raging Bull or Affliction, you will love this movie. The movie takes its time of studying characters, questioning his actions and also processing why things are presenting in some weird fashion. Also, the narrative serves the priest character quite well. The ending does suffer for me because I felt it was a bit more humorous that ambiguous because if it were to sustain that tone of dark ambiguity, then, this movie would have been near-perfect. However, after thinking about the ending, I think I know what Schrader is saying parallel to religious themes. It is a studious, dark film that feels more complex than solely being spiritual and it is a revelation in the midst of a surprisingly good year. This is Schrader's best movie in a long time.
***1/2
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