I watched "A Quiet Place" and thought it was pretty satisfyingly scary. Then I watched "Hereditary" and was suitably creeped out. Then I watched "First Reformed" and was scared out of my pants.
Who knew that "First Reformed" would end up being the best horror movie of the year? Director Paul Schrader, who scripted the original "Taxi Driver," the legendary Martin Scorsese film from 1976, dusts off some of the preoccupations of that earlier film and gives us an updated version that's more in tune with our troubled current times.
Scorsese's film was about Vietnam and the mental toll it took on those who served in it. Travis Bickle, played so memorably by Robert De Niro, fought for his country and then was unceremoniously dumped back into the middle of NYC and its urban decay. He appointed himself a righteous avenging angel, determined to clean up the streets of the immorality and sleaze he saw there. His taxi was his church, and in his isolation his feverish thoughts and fantasies turned into his own twisted version of reality.
In "First Reformed," the conflict is the Gulf War rather than Vietnam, and the church is an actual church, in this case presided over by a priest who turned to the cloth after he lost his son in Iraq. Then a series of incidents with an environmental activist parishioner triggers a kindred activist spark in the priest that goes haywire, and he decides the way to prove his faith is to make mankind atone for the raping of God's creation, planet Earth.
Ethan Hawke gives a tremendous performance in this film, perhaps the best of his career. The film is one sustained note of dread, and it's incredibly bleak. It poses the question, "Is it morally justifiable to bring a child into this world knowing that that we're in the process of destroying it?" And as a father of two young boys it made me extremely uncomfortable to admit that it's probably not.
The ending of this film will likely enrage some and enrapture others. I can't talk too much without spoiling it, but I thought it was brilliant. One of the major themes of the movie is the choice we must make between hope and despair, and I can't think of a better way to make that point than by making us have to choose how this movie actually ends.
"First Reformed" crawled into my head and has stayed there haunting it for days. I might see movies I like more yet this year, but I can't imagine I'll see many that have had quite the same impact.
Grade: A+
Who knew that "First Reformed" would end up being the best horror movie of the year? Director Paul Schrader, who scripted the original "Taxi Driver," the legendary Martin Scorsese film from 1976, dusts off some of the preoccupations of that earlier film and gives us an updated version that's more in tune with our troubled current times.
Scorsese's film was about Vietnam and the mental toll it took on those who served in it. Travis Bickle, played so memorably by Robert De Niro, fought for his country and then was unceremoniously dumped back into the middle of NYC and its urban decay. He appointed himself a righteous avenging angel, determined to clean up the streets of the immorality and sleaze he saw there. His taxi was his church, and in his isolation his feverish thoughts and fantasies turned into his own twisted version of reality.
In "First Reformed," the conflict is the Gulf War rather than Vietnam, and the church is an actual church, in this case presided over by a priest who turned to the cloth after he lost his son in Iraq. Then a series of incidents with an environmental activist parishioner triggers a kindred activist spark in the priest that goes haywire, and he decides the way to prove his faith is to make mankind atone for the raping of God's creation, planet Earth.
Ethan Hawke gives a tremendous performance in this film, perhaps the best of his career. The film is one sustained note of dread, and it's incredibly bleak. It poses the question, "Is it morally justifiable to bring a child into this world knowing that that we're in the process of destroying it?" And as a father of two young boys it made me extremely uncomfortable to admit that it's probably not.
The ending of this film will likely enrage some and enrapture others. I can't talk too much without spoiling it, but I thought it was brilliant. One of the major themes of the movie is the choice we must make between hope and despair, and I can't think of a better way to make that point than by making us have to choose how this movie actually ends.
"First Reformed" crawled into my head and has stayed there haunting it for days. I might see movies I like more yet this year, but I can't imagine I'll see many that have had quite the same impact.
Grade: A+