First Reformed. Wow. This is hard core.
Usually, clergy having a crisis of Faith are questioning God. This is deeper than that. This is about a guy who’s questioning if we’ve perverted God’s creation. A guy who is questioning humanity. The best metaphor is that we’ve let Industry eat away at our environment like someone who allows cancer to eat away at their body. This is not an existential crisis for Reverend Holler, played by Ethan Hawke. It’s an exercise in existential dread. This is second only to Melancholia for me. I’d compare this performance by Hawke directly to his performance in the movie Tape. At points, First Reformed is a very restrained 3 person character study. Hawke appears to be in real, emotional pain throughout the movie. That manifests in sadness and incredible cruelty. All of the performances are great and are exactly what they needed to be for this to work. Shout out to Cedric Kyles aka Cedric the Entertainer. He’s not just there for comic relief or parody. His pastor Joel Jefferies is well done and works perfectly. I like this movie a lot. #FirstReformed