Armory Saturday, April 14, 2018 - 3:00 PM

First Reformed

Narrative Feature

113 minutes

2017

Director(s): Paul Schrader

USA

Synopsis

Oregon Premiere

Ethan Hawke stars as Ernst Toller, a former military chaplain who can’t get over the death of his son. In this taut, existential thriller from renowned screenwriter and director Paul Schrader, Hawke plays the pastor of a small New England church who spirals out of control after failing to help Michael, an unstable environmental activist, and his pregnant wife, Mary. Michael’s tragic suicide creates a connection between Toller and Mary, played by Amanda Seyfried. And as he learns more about Michael’s radical environmentalism and the devastating consequences of climate change, Toller doubts both his faith and his purpose in life. Informed by Schrader’s own complicated religious roots, First Reformed culminates in a clash of religion, politics, and mourning.

Director’s Statement

Theologians and philosophers have been having discussions about climate change for four or five thousand years and all of those discussions are now in boldface because we are actually at the point in human history where there may be an end to them. You start talking about what is the purpose of life, what is the purpose of humanity, what does it mean to be human, what does it mean to have consciousness? If you stand on your tiptoes and look, you can start to see the end of that conversation. Therefore, it’s a very exciting time to be alive and a frightening one as well. So the environment takes these classic religious and philosophical debates and puts them in neon and starts flashing them at you.