Please note: This was screened in April 2023
From writer-director Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Hardcore), First Reformed a slow-burn, mesmerising thriller about a crisis of faith, featuring a standout performance from Ethan Hawke.
Reverend Ernst Toller (Hawke) is a solitary parish pastor at a small Dutch Reformed 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 mega-church Abundant Life.
When a pregnant parishioner (Amanda Seyfried) asks Toller to counsel her husband, a radical environmentalist, the clergyman finds himself plunged into his own tormented past and despairing future, searching for meaning in the face of a man-made apocalypse.