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First Reformed (2017)

Director:
Paul Schrader
COUNTRY
USA
GENRE
Drama
NORWEGIAN TITLE
First Reformed
RUNNING TIME
113 minutes
Producer:
Jack Binder
Greg Clark
Victoria Hill
Gary Hamilton
Deepak Sikka
Christine Vachon
David Hinojosa
Frank Murray
Screenwriter:
Paul Schrader


Cast includes:

CHARACTER ACTOR/ACTRESS RATING
Pastor Ernst Toller Ethan Hawke ½
Mary Mensana Amanda Seyfried
Pastor Joel Jeffers Cedric Kyles
Esther Victoria Hill
Michael Mensana Philip Ettinger
Edward Balq Michael Gaston
John Elder Bill Hoag

 

Review

A powerful, soul-searching discussion on morality and morals, set in and around a church in Snowbridge, New York, where reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) struggles to help his congregation and himself in a tough time for the church and the community. Paul Schrader's film is visceral and unforgiving, but also soaked with sympathy and understanding. It's an intelligent story. Hawke and Amanda Seyfried play brilliantly off of each other in the two leads. Schrader also wrote the screenplay, and it is undoubtedly his best on this side of the millennium, perhaps since the 1980s. It garnered him his first Academy Award nomination, which obviously was long overdue.

Copyright © 16.05.2019 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang

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