Leave the World Behind (Netflix): A Review - It's the End of the World as We Know It...and Obama Feels Fine

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. This film never lives up to its potential but it does feature some impressive cinematography and a tantalizing and unnerving narrative. It isn’t a great movie but it does make for a good conversation/thought piece.

Leave the World Behind, written and directed by Sam Esmail, is a dystopian, apocalyptic, psychological thriller produced by Barrack and Michelle Obama now streaming on Netflix.

The film, which stars Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke and Mahershala Ali, is based on the novel of the same name by Ruuman Alam, and it tells the story of the Sanford and Scott families as they navigate an unfolding cataclysm across the U.S. from a tony neighborhood on Long Island.

The Sanford’s, a white family from Park Slope-adjacent Brooklyn, made up of the ornery Amanda (Julia Roberts), her easy-going husband Clay (Ethan Hawke), and their teenage children Archie (Charlie Evans), who is obsessed with girls, and Rose (Farrah McKenzie), who is obsessed with 90s pop culture – like Friends and The West Wing, rent a beautiful home at the beach on Long Island for a week.

In the middle of their first night, there’s a knock at the door, and two black people, G.H. (Mahershala Ali) and Ruth (Myha’la), appear. The story between the Sanfords and the Scotts go from there but I won’t get any more in-depth on it in order to avoid spoilers.

The rest of the plot revolves around mysterious events that are happening in the U.S., specifically in relation to the Sanfords and Scotts, in New York City.

Technology, such as cell phones, the internet and cable television, stop working, leaving the protagonists in an information and communication blackout, which allows chaos and paranoia to flourish.

Once again, in order to avoid spoilers, I will refrain from delving much deeper into the plot than that.

The film’s director, Sam Esmail, is best known for creating the tv series Mr. Robot, but this is just his second feature film, and despite some very bright spots, at times it shows.

To Esmail’s great credit, he creates some very vivid and stunning images in Leave the World Behind, that rattle viewers to the core. Visually the film never fails to unnerve with one apocalyptic nightmare visual after another, like luxurious paintings hanging in a dystopian art gallery.

Esmail and cinematographer Tod Campbell use an often swirling, spinning, panning, zooming and rotating camera to make the viewer just as discombobulated and disoriented as the characters portrayed on-screen. All this camera movement isn’t just directorial masturbation, but instead is very cinematically effective and done with an admirable amount of precision and creative dexterity. As the character’s go through their strange journey, Esmail’s camera leaves viewers in a world where up is down, and left is right…literally.

The same is true of the camera framing, as things are often shot from odd angles, and despite the visuals being crisp and amid razor-sharp straight lines, everything is framed off-kilter and off-center, to great affect.

Unfortunately, as much as I loved the look of the film, the story it shows and the drama it reveals are often sorely lacking.

The biggest issue with Leave the World Behind is that it is bursting with a cavalcade of dramatic potential, but is never able to fully realize it.

The greatest obstacle to the film’s dramatic success is that it gives us one-dimensional, unreal characters, places them in an extreme yet compelling and entirely believable situation, and then has them behave in the most inane, counter-intuitive and annoying ways imaginable.

I can’t give too much away in regards to specifics, but things happen, and characters behave, in ways, both big and small, that are just ridiculous beyond belief and it frankly ruins the film as the tension and drama are undermined by these egregious plot and character improbabilities and decisions.

There’s a bit at the end which is meant to be poignant, and could have been really terrific, but is ultimately neutered by a failure of Esmail to thoroughly impress upon the audience, through repetition or targeted intensity, the crucial pieces involved. (Again, I am being intentionally vague to avoid spoilers.)

As for the cast, they do the best they can with the rather shallow characters they’ve been given.

Julia Roberts’ Amanda is basically an upper-middle class, left-of-center Karen, exercising her mid-life crisis muscles by being an irritable bitch for reasons she will never even try to understand. Roberts is a steady screen presence but she has never brought much of interest to the table and Leave the World Behind is no exception.

Ethan Hawke has matured into a solid actor and his good-natured Clay is a passable and likable attempt at an everyman – if ‘everyman’ were a college professor of English and Media Studies. It’s the character of Clay that is much more troubling than the actor portraying him, as Clay is the clueless, sack-less white man incapable of not only defending himself but of mustering the courage to even attempt it.

Charlie Evans and Farrah Mackenzie play the teens Archie and Rose respectively, and there isn’t much to the characters or the actor’s performances. Neither of them jumps off the screen or generates the least bit of magnetism.

Mahershala Ali is, as always, a strong presence on-screen, but his character G.H., is an absurd stand-in for the film’s producer Barrack Obama. G.H. is impeccable. He is unfailingly good, smarter than everyone and entirely incapable of cowardice. He is principled, moral, ethical, noble, brave and above all…correct. Yawn. The truth is that there were twists and turns that could’ve occurred with G.H. to make him more interesting, but they never happen and so we are left with little more than a cardboard cutout of the man that Barrack Obama, and his slavish sycophants, thinks he is - paging Dr. Freud…narcissism alert!

Myha’la as Ruth Scott is fine, I guess, but again, she doesn’t have much with which to work. Ruth is, like G.H., better than everyone else…I suppose simply because of her immutable characteristics…namely that she is black and a woman. Like Roberts’ Amanda, Ruth is an incorrigible bitch but it’s ok because she’s just speaking her truth…or something like that.

The genuine drama between Ruth and G.H., and between the Sanfords and the Scotts, is eschewed in favor of a rather tepid, embarrassingly trite, middle-of-the-road, decidedly elitist and liberal, high school freshman level identity/race politics that feels forced and obscenely phony, which is very unfortunate.

Speaking of politics, the fact that the Obamas produced this movie, the first non-documentary film they’ve produced, is both telling and, frankly, quite unnerving.

The apocalyptic, dystopian, and totally believable plot of Leave the World Behind, and Obama’s insider status among the power elite, makes it feel like this movie isn’t a piece of fiction but rather a piece of predictive programming…or enlightened prophecy, as to what awaits us.

That may sound irrational, or like “conspiratorial thinking” – something that is lambasted in the film as being unserious despite it being proven correct in the story (and more and more often in real life), but whether conscious or unconscious, artists and art often have a way of showing us the catastrophe that is right around the corner. 9/11 is a recent example of this.

The film is marinated in an establishment politics that is entirely rigid, center-left and upper-class. This elitist, left-liberal orthodoxy is so deeply ingrained in the movie that most-mainstream, establishment indoctrinated viewers won’t even recognize, and if they did they wouldn’t see it as political.

I’ll write a much more in-depth, political, psychological analysis of the film in the coming days, but will state here only that this movie is riddled with as much insidious propaganda as anything I’ve seen in any feature film in recent times.

Whether it be subtle, or not-so-subtle, attacks on libertarians, right-wingers, white people, conspiracies, and even Elon Musk, or anything else that isn’t establishment approved, the film never fails to be in complete lockstep with mainstream orthodoxy as designed by the aristocracy and oligarchy.

In this way the film, despite its attempt to present itself as edgy and politically avant-garde/revolutionary, is, at its heart, an intellectually and dramatically flaccid but ideologically faithful homage to the status quo….just like the former President who produced it.

In conclusion, Leave the World Behind is chock full of dramatic potential but is never able to fully realize it. Despite some compelling visuals and sequences, the film’s dramatic and narrative failures ultimately leave it an unsatisfying viewing experience.

Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2023

The Last Movie Stars (HBO Max): A Documentary Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An insightful and thoughtful examination of two Hollywood icons and their long marriage.

The Last Movie Stars is a six-episode documentary mini-series which examines the lives, careers and marriage of acting icons Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. The series was directed by actor Ethan Hawke and is currently streaming on HBO Max.

Since well before I was ever born, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were the standard for the perfect marriage. Newman was the impossibly handsome, gracious, generous and grounded movie star, and Woodward was his down-to-earth, doting wife, mother to his kids and a powerful, Academy Award winning actress in her own right.

I once had the surreal experience of sitting directly behind them at a play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music about twenty years ago, and was struck by two things…how ridiculously beautiful they both were and how unnervingly normal they were as a couple. If it weren’t for their impeccable bone structure and piercing eyes, they could have been any other old couple out for a night at the theatre.

The Last Movie Stars attempts to go beyond the sterling façade of Newman and Woodward’s marriage and reveal their personal complexities and their deeply complicated relationship to one-another, their kids and their art.

Hawke obviously respects, admires and adores his subjects, and the series is much closer to hagiography than hit piece, but to his credit, he doesn’t dismiss or ignore the messier aspects of both Woodward and Newman’s lives. For instance, though it is done with a loving touch and no sense of animosity, Newman and Woodward’s children speak frankly and freely about their father’s alcoholism and their mother’s somewhat indifference to raising children. The rather uncomfortable topic of how the two met and started dating is also thoroughly explored and it isn’t the least bit flattering to Newman…or Woodward.

Hawke bases his documentary on a discarded memoir that Newman had intended to write with the help of a co-writer. Newman gave that writer permission to interview everyone in Paul’s life, which the writer did. But the tapes of those interviews were burned when Newman decided against the book…but thankfully the transcripts of those recordings have now been found and are the roadmap for The Last Movie Stars.

To bring those transcripts to life Hawke enlists a bunch of famous actor friends to voice the people from the transcripts. For example, George Clooney voices Paul Newman, Laura Linney is Joanne Woodward, Zoe Kazan is Paul’s first wife Jackie, Bobby Cannavale is Elia Kazan and so on and so forth.

It is somewhat ironic that George Clooney voices Paul Newman as his casting proves the title’s point. Newman was a mega-movie star with an Actor’s Studio background who dominated movies for forty years. Clooney was supposed to be as big of a star but he lacked, first and foremost, the craft and skill of Newman, but also his charisma and his artistic prowess.

There’s a very strong argument that Newman really was the last movie star because he was a “method actor” raised in the studio system who transitioned through the artistic/business revolution of the 60’s and 70’s without losing any of his star power.

George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and all the rest of the recent era wannabes have certainly had success, but their cinematic, cultural and artistic power is minuscule compared to Paul Newman.

Much to my surprise, Hawke’s decision to voice cast the film with well-known actors works astonishingly well. In addition, Hawke’s rapport with his cast in side discussions is endearing and brings a familial feel to the festivities.

 As for Newman and Woodward, their individual journeys and their journey together, are simply remarkable.

Newman came up during the Method Acting revolution of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. He attended the Actor’s Studio in New York with luminaries such as Marlon Brando and James Dean.

Newman was born ten months after Brando, but he was no Brando. He wasn’t James Dean, either. But thanks to an undying work ethic and an astonishingly persistent relationship with luck he carved out a career path that outlasted (but not outshone) them both.

As an actor Newman was different than Brando and Dean in that he wasn’t about emoting but withholding. Everything happening in a Newman character is happening beneath the surface, in a cauldron boiling deep in his famous blue eyes. That somewhat reserved approach at first left him overshadowed by his supernova contemporaries, Brando and Dean.

But then luck intervened and James Dean’s untimely death opened the door to Newman’s ascension and directly led to his being cast in Somebody Up There Likes Me.

Brando’s erraticism and combustibility eventually led him to burn out and self-destruct, while Newman’s tightly contained personality kept his career from ever falling apart. And so, Paul Newman, by sheer force of will, perseverance and luck, became the actor of his generation.

Joanne Woodward was a great actress in her own right. She was the bigger star when the two met, and early in their relationship she won a Best Actress Oscar (Three Faces of Eve). But patriarchal demands forced parenthood to replace career ambitions for her just as Paul’s career went meteoric. That would be a thorn in her side for the rest of their time together.

Woodward’s filmography is often overlooked, and even Zoe Kazan, a terrific young actress who’s a talking head in the documentary – and who happens to be Elia Kazan’s granddaughter, shockingly admits she has never seen a Joanne Woodward film. That’s a shame as in her heyday she was as good as anyone on screen. Her work in Three Faces of Eve and Rachel, Rachel is impressive and worth a watch to get a taste of her talent.

Newman’s filmography needs no introduction, and his work in The Hustler, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cool Hand Luke, Hud, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Verdict and The Color of Money is must-see for any aspiring actor.

Watching The Last Move Stars is enjoyable because it gives Woodward and Newman’s work a new perspective that reveals even deeper meaning to their artistry. And that’s the thing about this supposed Hollywood glamour couple that is so compelling and impressive, and that is their commitment to two things, their art and each other.

Through thick and thin they stuck it out. They didn’t bail when things got tough, and things often got very tough. They endured, and that is a lesson for every couple out there, even the ones who aren’t glamourous movie stars.

Yes, Woodward and Newman stumbled a lot, both artistically and as people. For instance, Newman was a terribly flawed man and a failed father, but he was ever on the search for forgiveness and/or redemption. His staggeringly impressive charitable work, including his camp for seriously ill children and his Newman’s Own food lines, speak to that yearning.

Despite the slings and arrows of life, or maybe because of them, Woodward and Newman never lost their humanity. It’s their flaws and failings and their steadfast refusal to give up in the face of them that make them relatable and even more captivating as a couple.

The Last Movie Stars is as insightful a documentary about movie stars as you’ll find because it focuses less on the myth and more on the humans embodying the myth. Ultimately, this documentary is, like the stars it attempts to explore, most notable for its humanity, and that’s a credit not only to the extraordinary Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, but to Ethan Hawke.

©2022

The Northman: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

 My Recommendation: SEE IT. This weird, arthouse action movie is flawed but also unique, interesting and gorgeously photographed, so best to see it in the theatre.

The Northman, directed and co-written by arthouse darling Robert Eggers, may be the most brazenly bizarre big budget action movie in cinema history.

The best way I can describe the film is to say that it’s like if Conan the Barbarian and Hamlet had a baby and Norse mythology was its wet nurse.

Writer/Director Eggers is one of the more intriguing talents to come along in recent years, and he made a name for himself with his distinctly stylized, visually impeccable, first two films, The Witch (2015) and The Lighthouse (2019). Those movies were arthouse ventures through and through, and while I liked The Witch much more than The Lighthouse, I respected what Eggers was up to in both films.

With The Northman, Eggers is stepping out of his comfort zone and stepping up in budget to an estimated $90 million, in an attempt to expand his audience with a more action-oriented movie. With more money comes, well, less responsibility, as Eggers lost the power of final cut of his movie, leaving him no doubt unhappy to have his film be left at the mercy of soulless suits from the studio.

The plot of The Northman is as old-school as it gets, as it’s a revenge story, one which has no doubt been told and retold since the dawn of history.

The film follows the trials and tribulations of Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard), a Viking prince who sets out on a journey to avenge the murder of his father and capture of his mother.  

Amleth’s odyssey is epic in concept but Eggers makes it feel intimate in execution, whether that is a plus or minus is entirely a matter of taste, with arthouse aficionados probably liking it and action fans being disappointed by it.  

What makes The Northman so fascinating as an action movie, and it is an action movie as there are some gorgeously shot battle sequences that are as good as it gets in the genre, is that scattered among the usual revenge story twists and turns are scenes that explore the esoteric spirituality of the Vikings. To put it mildly, these scenes are weird, and viewers who signed up to just watch the spectacle of a Viking kicking some ass will no doubt be irritated and annoyed by such artsy distractions.

I found these forays into the Norse netherworlds to be fascinating, but I am admittedly a strange person and that sort of stuff is right up my alley, so take that for what it is worth.

The biggest problem for me about The Northman was not the winding story or the esoteric detours, but rather something much more basic…namely that the film’s star, Alexander Skarsgard, isn’t up to the job.

To be clear, Skarsgard isn’t a bad actor and he doesn’t embarrass himself as Amleth, the Berserker on a mission. No, the trouble with Skarsgard is that he simply lacks that “it” factor which all movie stars need. Yes, he’s is impossibly handsome and he is in incredible shape for the role of a Viking – for example, his traps are absurd, but Skarsgard just doesn’t have the requisite supply of charisma, magnetism and blind ambition to make a compelling enough screen presence.

Skarsgard is in nearly every frame of this film and yet he never jumps off the screen. Unlike his co-star Anya Taylor Joy, who obviously loves the camera and the camera loves her back, Skarsgard often times seems to be trying to hide from the camera and by default, audiences. In contrast, Taylor Joy’s ambition oozes out of her every pore, and you see her seek out the camera at every opportunity, but Skarsgard feels like a reluctant leading man.

That said he does pull off the action scenes with aplomb, but it’s when things slow down, that Skarsgard recedes into his shell.

As for Anya Taylor Joy, who plays Olga – a Slavic Sorceress, she makes the most of her supporting role. Taylor Joy was fantastic in Eggers’ first film The Witch, and her career is in steep ascendance, and you can see why in The Northman. She steals nearly every scene in which she appears, and her magnetism and dynamism are absolutely undeniable. She is a star who is in the early stages of going supernova.

Other actors in supporting roles, like Ethan Hawke as Amleth’s father-king, and Willem Dafoe as a court jester, do solid work in smaller roles.

Nicole Kidman plays Amleth’s mother Queen Gudrun, and while I admire the attempt, she seems to be out of sync with the acting style of the rest of the film.

Unfortunately, Claes Bang, who plays Amleth’s nemesis Fjolnir, is not up to his task and makes for an underwhelming villain.

The real star of The Northman is director Robert Eggers and his cinematographer Jarin Blaschke. There are sequences in this movie, most notably the climactic battle scene and an earlier scene of a raid on a village by Vikings, that are stunning to behold. Gloriously and gorgeously photographed, The Northman is elevated from a run of the mill blood, beards and brutality Viking tale into a piece of semi-populist cinematic art.

The screening of The Northman I attended was the first screening on the Sunday of opening weekend, and it was sold out. I saw the film in a mall in a rural part of upstate New York, and the audience reactions were very muted. No doubt audience expectations of a blood and guts action movie were thwarted by Eggers’ unique arthouse style and narrative decisions.

Due to my experience of seeing the film in “rural America”, I can’t help but feel that The Northman will under-perform at the box office because it’s arthouse weirdness will alienate regular viewers and negative word of mouth will be the kiss of death.

That would be a shame, as The Northman isn’t a great movie, but it is a good and interesting one. Despite its weak leading man, The Northman is a captivating cinematic experience that is worth the effort to see in theatres…but you should hurry as I don’t think it’ll be in theatres long, and its stunning cinematography will seem less so on a smaller screen.

In conclusion, if all action movies boasted the masterful artistry and depth of understanding of The Northman, then cinema would be a much more interesting and relevant artform than it is now. We need more movies like The Northman, not less. I pray to Odin that he makes it so.

©2022

Blaze: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. Skip it in the theatre, as the film never rises to its artistic ambitions, but see it on cable or Netflix to catch Ben Dickey’s charismatic performance.

Blaze, written by Ethan Hawke and Sybil Rosen (based on Rosen’s book “Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze") and directed by Hawke, is the story of enigmatic musician Blaze Foley. The film stars Ben Dickey as Blaze Foley and Elia Shawkat as Sybil Rosen, and features supporting turns from Josh Hamilton, Charlie Sexton, Sam Rockwell and Steve Zahn.

Blaze director Ethan Hawke is an intriguing character for having been the symbol of a sort of intellectual artist in the film business for nearly thirty years. Hawke’s attraction to the real-life Blaze Foley, a legendary but mysterious country music figure, is no doubt born out of his respect for Foley’s commitment to artistry over commerce.

Blaze is Hawke’s love letter to Foley and in a sense, a bit of projection, as Blaze Foley is what Hawke wishes he could more genuinely be…a tortured artist. While Hawke is certainly an artist, he is not a tortured one. Hawke has, by every measure, had a very successful, dare I say, comfortable life, first as the poster boy for Gen X ennui then as the symbol of intellectual literacy in a film industry that can barely read.

I was excited to see Blaze because as I have gotten older, I have grown to appreciate and respect Ethan Hawke more and more as an actor and also as a presence in our culture. Hawke may be a bit pretentious (as am I) and may be a bit of a poseur (as am I), but at the very least his pretensions and his pose are attempting to fill the cavernous void in American culture where stupidity is translated into relatability and intellectualism is maligned as elitism.

Sadly, Hawke’s Blaze misses the mark for a very surprising reason…it is suffocated by the orthodox conventions of the genre. Blaze is a standard bio-pic wearing an art house jacket. Hawke makes the unwise decision to hold to the traditional conventions of bio-pics, and thus neuters the story and the film of any and all cinematic vibrancy. For Blaze to have succeeded, Hawke needed to eschew the format of the bio-pic and commit to a pure arthouse exploration.

Yes, Hawke does sprinkle in some artistic homages to Robert Altman, and gives his actors a strong dose of freedom in front of the camera, but ultimately he confines his own vision into the straight jacket of the bio-pic, and that vision loses its artistic mind struggling to break free of such a stultifying form.

Bio-pics are, by nature, hagiographic, but the very best ones (Raging Bull, Malcolm X) at least give you a glimpse into the genuine person behind the myth. In Blaze, Blaze Foley is reduced to being a tall tale told for effect, not a quest for the truth at the center of the man. Blaze Foley is never revealed in this film, and by the end he is just as big a mystery, if not bigger, than he was when it began.

Blaze Foley is a mythical creature, like a guitar playing Sasquatch, and Hawke’s film of his life is a campfire story recounting that time someone saw a glimpse of a shadow in a dark forest and could swear it was Bigfoot.

There were some bright spots in the film, namely the magnetic performance from Ben Dickey as Blaze. Dickey has an ease and charm about him in front of the camera that is undeniable. He is also a magnetic screen presence with a palpable air of meloncholy and mischief about him, and because of that he lights up every single scene he inhabits.

On the down side, Elia Shawkat, who plays Foley’s wife, Sybil Rosen, is just not up to the task. Shawkat, who comes across as younger than she ought to be, underwhelms in a pivotal role, and it undermines the film even further.

Charlie Sexton, who plays Blaze’s friend and musical compatriot Townes Van Zandt, is also problematic, and feels stilted and unnatural on screen. The interview scenes of Townes that pepper the film, bring any sort of narrative or creative momentum to a screeching halt every time they pop up.

While there are some solid scenes and some directorial flair, such as an Adam and Eve scene where Sybil convinces Blaze to pursue glory, even feeding him an apple in the process, or a scene where Kris Kristofferson, playing Blaze’s father who barely speaks, is visited by Blaze, the rest of the film is basically recounting things that happened, which never gives us insight into the man.

At the end of the day, Blaze is a bit of an indulgent and unfocused film that needed a stronger hand and a more coherent cinematic aesthetic from its director, Ethan Hawke. As the film reveals to us, Townes Van Zandt is a mannered, self-serving liar, and Blaze Foley is an unabashed truth-teller, Ethan Hawke the director, lies somewhere in-between.

©2018

First Reformed: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!!****

My Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A serious art house meditation on religion and politics and the politics of religion. A flawed but worthwhile film for the religiously, spiritually and cinematically inclined.

First Reformed, written and directed by Paul Schrader, is the story of Toller, a protestant pastor and former military chaplain, struggling with his faith amidst environmental and personal concerns. The film stars Ethan Hawke as Toller, with supporting turns from Amanda Seyfried and Cedric Kyles. 

First Reformed is a fascinating film that, like Jacob with the angel, wrestles with complex issues of faith and politics (and a fusing of the two), with a deft and insightful passion. I can't tell you what a joy it is for me to see a film that takes seriously matters of faith and genuinely grapples with religious issues without falling into either a display of saccharine christianity or reflexive anti-religiosity. 

When Ethan Hawke's character Toller mentions iconic 20th century Catholic monk Thomas Merton, and later has a small debate with a fellow pastor over Merton's work, I knew this was no ordinary movie about religion, but rather a serious contemplation of complex spiritual issues. Spiritual questions, such as whether in the search for a vibrant religious life should one engage with the world (and its politics) or retreat from it into a monk-like existence, and the perils of both approaches, are at the forefront of First Reformed. 

Writer/director Paul Schrader is best known for being the screenwriter of Martin Scorsese's masterpieces Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ. While Schrader is an infinitely more talented writer than director, he did on one occasion make an exquisite film, his 1997 examination of familial rage, Affliction. That film resonated so deeply with me that I frequently contemplate it even twenty years later. Affliction aside, Schrader's films usually suffer from his less polished direction. 

I think, in keeping with Schrader's history, First Reformed is infinitely better written than it is directed, but Schrader's direction is strong enough to put it in second place in his directorial cannon behind Affliction. There are certainly some pacing problems with the narrative, not that it goes too slow, but rather it makes dramatic leaps that the story hasn't quite yet earned, which left me feeling that the final third of the film was a bit dramatically rushed. In addition, the transition from the realism of the first two thirds of the film to the final third's deep dive into symbolism and the metaphorical, might be jarring to some, but I encourage you to make the leap as it is worth the effort to suspend your disbelief (which may very well be the brilliant sub-text of the entire film). 

Schrader and cinematographer Alexander Dynan do paint an intriguing picture with First Reformed, particularly with their framing. There are some shots that are absolutely delicious, such as when Dynan turns a rather mundane shot of Toller's entrance into a church into a visual masterpiece by simply shooting from above (God's perspective) down onto a rug with the church's logo on it turned upside down. It is a dizzyingly glorious shot that, like all great pictures, speaks a thousand words. 

The religious and spiritual dimensions of the film are surprisingly nuanced and complex. Toller is representative of a traditionalist (old world) faith, his church is one of the oldest in America, but that faith is dying. His church is nicknamed "the souvenir shop" because people don't go to actually worship there, only to stop by for historical tours and to buy trinkets. 

Toller's "old religion" is contrasted with the new wave mega-church of Pastor Jeffers (Cedric Kyle). Toller deems Pastor Jeffers house of worship more akin to a corporation than a church but he still tries to off-load his counseling duties to its abundant staff. This religious clash between Toller and Jeffers in First Reformed is playing out in real time here in the U.S. as evangelical mega churches sell a corporatized, flag waving, prosperity gospel under the veneer of Christianity while more traditional churches get more and more marginalized in the culture and their pews are more and more empty. 

The Toller character is not only representative of the old church, but of God's green earth. Not only is Toller's faith and church dying, but so is the planet, and Toller's body comes to symbolize the earth. Toller fills his body with toxic trash and refuses to change his behavior even when doctors tell him he must in order to save himself. First Reformed makes the case that the same is true of corporate America (and the world), who constantly ignore existential environmental concerns in favor of myopic capitalist ones. 

As the film plays out, Toller turns into a Christ-like figure, battling demons within and without and trying to save his soul in the process. Like Christ, Toller must choose between a dizzying array of archetypes…is he a warrior, a martyr, a savior, a devil or all of the above? Is Toller an activist or a terrorist? An evangelist or a monk? As Toller goes deeper and deeper into the rabbit's hole in search for the meaning and purpose of his life (and maybe all life), spiritual vertigo sets in, at which point viewers are asked to take some leaps that may be a bridge too far for some, but which I found to be challenging yet deeply rewarding. 

Ethan Hawke does some of his best work as Toller. Hawke's Toller has a world weary gravitas about him that fills the character with a troubled present, past and future. Hawke gives Toller a palpable cross to bear, and his skillful performance lures the viewer in to help him carry it. Toller's metamorphosis and awakening in the film is compelling and is a testament to Hawke's talent and mastery of craft. 

Amanda Seyfried plays Mary and is meant to be symbolic of hope and potential. While at times Seyfried performance feels a bit out of rhythm with the film, and feels unconscionably lightweight next to Hawke's burdened Toller, she does do enough to fulfill the character's dramatic purpose. Treating Seyfried's Mary as less a real-life character and more a totem of spiritual hope and redemption makes her performance much more digestible. 

Cedric Kyle, who is better known as Cedric the Entertainer, is unrecognizable from his comedic persona as Pastor Jeffers. I had no idea that is who the actor really was as Kyle looks the same but is energetically unrecognizable to Cedric the Entertainer. Kyle gives a seamless performance that is shocking because it is entirely without any artifice. 

In conclusion, First Reformed is a very interesting, if somewhat flawed film, that I found well worth worth my time and money. If you have minimal or no interest in matters of faith and religion, this film will be too much for you. And if you are allergic to the art house, then stay well clear of First Reformed. But if you are a cinephile, a religiously minded or faithful person, and can make the leap from taking the film literally to taking it figuratively, First Reformed is the film for you. It certainly won't give you any easy answers, but it will definitely ask you some very difficult and profound questions. 

©2018