First Reformed

— A look at the middle-aged pastor at a small, 250-year-old church that sees more people taking tours than attending services, making it more a link to the past than the future, while its nearby parent church, Abundant Life, has all the trappings of prosperity and technology, along with 5,000 or so parishioners. It’s a perfect place to have your faith tested and to experience despair. Although there are a few key events, the film relies mostly on small, daily happenings to tell its well-written story, with much of the narration coming from the journal being kept by the pastor as he undergoes his spiritual crisis in a seemingly hopeless world. The film is perfectly controlled and it’s hard not to hang on the pastor’s every word, marveling at Ethan Hawke’s acting and Paul Schrader's incredible writing and directing skills. It touches on lots of issues in the political and environmental arena, in addition to looking at hope, faith, forgiveness, and redemption. The ending was a little unsatisfactory for me, but I didn’t mind since there were so many ideas for me still to consider and so many images sure to flash through my mind in the future. This was an ambitious effort and a successful one. I’d recommend it.

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[2017. 113 min. Written and directed by Paul Schrader. Starring Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, and Cedric the Entertainer.]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/this-new-movie-gets-right-everything-that-mother-got-wrong/2018/05/22/c198ed14-5947-11e8-8836-a4a123c359ab_story.html