
Flicks, Blake Howard
Writer/director Paul Schrader’s First Reformed is an utterly mesmerising, elegant work of faith and rage.
Full reviewEthan Hawke is a former military chaplain wracked by grief over the death of his son in this intense drama from Paul Schrader (writer of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull). Nominated for the Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival 2017.
Writer/director Paul Schrader’s First Reformed is an utterly mesmerising, elegant work of faith and rage.
Full reviewSchrader courts respectability and leaves it in the dust, getting stoned on excess. But make no mistake: He's still one hell of a filmmaker.
Full reviewSchrader and his cast commit to the project with sharpened and unblinking seriousness, even when the going gets mesmerically weird, with violence, visions, levitations and Neil Young protest songs chanted sombrely by toxic swamps.
Full reviewA deeply felt, deeply thought picture; impressive in its seriousness and often gripping in the way it frames itself as a debate and a sermon.
Full reviewThoughtful, moving, overreaching and uncompromising, "First Reformed" is a tremendously tormented work. Ethan Hawke delivers a performance full of grace and sorrow in this powerful portrait of existential and spiritual despair.
Full reviewWhat keeps us alert as viewers is not the slow disintegration of this man's faith, but the deep ambiguity about where the film's sympathies actually lie.
Full reviewThere's not quite enough oomph or style in the filmmaking to make you forget about the schematic nature of the dramatic construct.
Full reviewFirst Reformed is available to stream in Australia now on Google Play and Apple TV and Prime Video Store.
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