[yasr_overall_rating]
A priest of a small congregation in upstate New York grapples with mounting despair brought on by tragedy, worldly concerns, and a tormented past.
I admit when this movie started I was excited to go down this rabbit hole. I knew full well going into it that there would be extreme darkness. The story follows Ethan Hawke as a Reverend Toller, a pastor in a small satellite church in upstate New York, as he ministers to a disturbed and potentially violent parishioner of his. As the story delves deeper and deeper into Toller’s own guilt and doubt, violence, in some form or another, seems more and more likely.
This movie will shred you apart. Gliding along at its own pace and unafraid to take the time for a scene to develop we are often perched on one-takes for intense moments. We cannot look away from the always-perfect frame director Paul Schrader envisioned for us. Instead, we’re confronted with something terrible and terrifying. We witness the degradation of one man’s identity as he tries to salvage another man and possibly prevent catastrophe. If you think this is a story about saving the redemptive value of religion, look in a different corner.
In the first thirty minutes the audience endures a conversation so theologically simple and yet it sheds new light on us. Just as Hawke tells us “we can’t have despair without hope,” both sides of the conflict are brought into focus. Here is a man, isolated from humanity (all alone at his small church with no family and few friends) with an innumerable list of things to feel guilty about. As Ethan Hawke wades deeper and deeper into the pit of despair, his parishioner feels the darker things become for him.
This movie sets up brilliantly the failure of institutions: religious, political, industrial. While the moral argument centers around climate change and the church’s responsibility, Ethan Hawke kind of cuts through the noise as he experiences the hypocrisies around him instead of just debating it. The fact that we’re treated to a visual feast with every single frame being near-perfectly composed around a sterile, winter landscape and the church only enhances this view. The world becomes less grey, both visually and narratively. Hawke, left with the instruments of violence, slowly comes to a plan to strike back at the corruption he sees all around himself.
It’s a dark movie and every twist and turn ratchets the tension up slowly, bit by bit. That’s where the movie succeeds: it shows us a likable man who’s broken down by his own institutions and how those institutions arguably let him fall through cracks. It moves laterally around the hour and twenty-minute mark where Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried go on a spiritual journey together in a trippy sequence. For the first thing to watch on a Thursday morning, I was not prepared for how dark it was going to get.
I loved the intentionality of the film. I love the visuals of it. I will say, this movie does not cater to everyone’s taste. People are going to be upset, people are going to be let down, and people are going to be frightened because they understand the convincing argument Hawke’s character finds to justify violence. While not necessarily an antithesis to religious fervor, the film fully endorses climate change, both as a looming crisis and a current day dilemma. I would say, if you’re a fan of Darren Aronofsky – you will love this film. It’s definitely in that vein.
Now playing in select theaters
