story over thought

Taxi Driver with a priest. It seems ridiculous, until you stop and realize the solitary and isolated lives that many religious people lead. After all, no one is quite as good at rationalizing pain and disappointment as someone who has dedicated their entire life to something they cannot hear, see, or touch. In many ways, it makes it easier. If you feel bad about all the sin you’ve committed, you can always punish yourself by thinking about how God will never tell you it’s okay, at least not directly.

That’s what First Reformed is about, of course. Faith and unbelief. Loneliness and love. Hope and despair. The contradictions and paradoxical impulses that exist in so many people today. Ethan Hawke’s small-town minister, Ernst Toller, is almost comically self-obsessed, meticulously detailing his thoughts in a nightly journal about how hard it is to have faith, how lonely he is after the death of his son and divorce from his wife, and the dwindling numbers at his congregation. Toller’s church, First Reformed, has seven or eight members at most, and is primarily a tourist attraction since the building is historic. Up the road is Abundant Life, a megachurch run by pastor Joel Jeffers, who has relegated Toller to the one with less attention. In stark contrast, Abundant Life is filled to the brim with happy, excited youth, eager to serve God; youth who comically butt heads with Toller at one point over scripture.

Towards the beginning of the film, Toller is asked to speak to the husband of pregnant Mary, one of the few consistent attendees in his congregation. Toller and Michael meet up and discuss environmental concerns that are preventing the would-be father from wanting the baby to be born. Michael, an activist and avid protester, shows the minister piece after piece of evidence that climate change will make the earth uninhabitable in less than fifty years. How, he asks, can he bring a child into this world? Wouldn’t it be a terrible sin? Toller shares his own story of asking his son to enlist and his subsequent death in Iraq. Michael seems to acquiesce, but the two agree to have this discussion again. Later that week, Mary urgently meets with Toller to show him a suicide vest that Michael has been building in the garage. Toller takes it away, determined to keep them both unharmed. When he shows up to his planned second meeting with Michael, he finds a dead body. Michael has committed suicide as a protest, leaving a will asking Toller and his wife to scatter his ashes at a polluted toxic waste dump.

Toller starts undergoing a change. He is deeply affected by Michael’s death and his cause, especially his dilemma of finding purpose in a doomed world. He begins to care less and less about his own deteriorating health and relationships and more and more about God’s green earth being carelessly destroyed by big business. Schrader is clearly drawing a line between radical ideologies and social isolation – Jihadism is mentioned at one point, obviously no coincidence. Just like Travis in Taxi Driver, or Jake in Raging Bull, or Major Rane in Rolling Thunder, all Schrader-penned classics, Toller is someone who starts hating the world around him because he can’t let himself enjoy simple things like love and friendship. Esther, the choir director, regularly reminds Toller that she is in love with him and that he needs someone to care for him. He turns her down over and over before finally getting in her face. “I despise you,” he snarls. “You are a constant reminder of my own personal inadequacies and failings.”

Schrader explores self-pity and angst better than almost anyone in Hollywood (Taxi Driver is autobiographical, after all), and First Reformed is another example of him worshipping at the cinematic altar of Robert Bresson. Toller is unbearably self-deprecating, justified in his own eyes because he frames it as service to God. But when he finally gives in and shares a physical moment with Mary, the room literally disappears into a cosmic background. The two start levitating in the middle of the room, an obvious visual homage to Tarkovsky, but also the film’s first example of restraint clashing with radical emotion. Eventually, his mind wanders back to the earth. Pollution. Climate change. Black smoke. He has to stay focused. The film switches gears afterwards, as unsettling music and slow, impressionistic zooms start to worm their way into the story.

The ending of the film features Toller arming himself with the suicide vest and preparing to detonate at First Reform’s reconsecration, an event that fills the church completely, and features a guest list that includes Jeffers, the governor, and the man responsible for polluting the dump that Michael protested against. It’s the type of outburst that would make Travis proud. Toller pauses, however, when he sees Mary in attendance, and takes his vest off before wrapping himself in barbed wire and pouring himself a cup of Drano, preparing for a more silent protest.

Earlier in the movie, Toller’s first conversation with Michael sets the groundwork for the film’s exploration of hope and despair. The priest tells him that one cannot exist without the other. But he also says, later, that “despair is a development of pride so great that it chooses one’s certitude rather than admit God is more creative than we are.” The creativity of our creator is the theme that gives First Reformed teeth. Against all odds, Mary finds Toller before he drinks the Drano and the two share an otherworldly, almost esoteric embrace. What about the door being locked? What about the barbed wire that was wrapped around Toller a second ago? These inconsistencies fade into the background as we witness two people who care about each other share a moment of comfort. More literal explanations exist (Toller is dying or hallucinating), but the film is clearly trying to evoke the transcendental thrill of an ending like that of Pickpocket or A Man Escaped.

Looking at First Reformed again through the lens of the ending clarifies the focus given to the environment, as well as religion. Michael and Toller are both characters who dedicate their lives to purposes that are supposed to benefit others, but completely neglect their own personal health and well-being, which both undermines their message and drives them towards isolation and a generalized sense of decay. It’s a theme explored superbly in Lynne Ramsey’s You Were Never Really Here, a movie that this film reminded me of occasionally. As in that film, Toller’s salvation comes from simply admitting that he needs a purpose beyond self-righteousness. God indeed put us here to suffer and learn humility, but he also put us here to enjoy the one thing he can’t—connecting with others. The paradox that gives us purpose. 

“Oh, Jeanne, to reach you at last. What a strange path I had to take.” 06-14-24