Bozeman Magazine

Ethan Hawke hits a career high in this gripping thriller. Reverend Ernst Toller (Hawke) is a solitary, middle-aged parish pastor at a small Dutch Reform church in upstate New York on the cusp of celebrating its 250th anniversary. Once a stop on the Underground Railroad, the church is now a tourist attraction catering to a dwindling congregation, eclipsed by its nearby parent church, Abundant Life, with its state-of-the-art facilities and 5,000-strong flock. When a pregnant parishioner (Amanda Seyfried) asks Reverend Toller to counsel her husband, a radical environmentalist, the clergyman finds himself plunged into his own tormented past, and equally despairing future, until he finds redemption in an act of grandiose violence. Brought to life from writer-director Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver; American Gigolo; Affliction) and elevated by a standout performance by Ethan Hawke, First Reformed takes a sensitive and suspenseful look at weighty themes in this critically acclaimed drama about a crisis of faith that is at once personal, political, and planetary. Rated R, the film runs 108 minutes. Closed captioning available. "Paul Schrader's 'First Reformed,' in which Ethan Hawke brilliantly plays an alcoholic Protestant minister undergoing a profound spiritual and psychological crisis, is a stunning, enrapturing film, a crowning work by one of the American cinema's most essential artists." RogerEbert.com.