First Reformed

       First Reformed is about a priest, Reverend Toller, who looks over a 250-year-old church called the "First Reformed Church" where the average attendance is about 5 to 10 people. At the same time, however, it's a historical monument/tourist site that, at one point, served as a checkpoint for slaves fleeing from plantations through the escape route known today as The Underground Railroad. He eventually meets a lady, Mary, who commissions the priest to counsel her husband, Micheal, on his growing fears and anger. He does so, but once he does, he starts to spiral into a black, mental void that leads him down a path of pain, anger, and violence.
       I didn't really know much about this movie going in. I saw that it was being released by A24 and since they have yet to disappoint me I decided to check it out. It's definitely one of the more artsy films of this year. The movie deals with themes of despair, anger, and mans impact on the environment. I didn't know that this movie was going to get as political as it did. One of the main contributors to Toller's depression spiral is his new found perspective on the earth. His meeting with Micheal ends up having an effect on him too. The husband is angry because he found out that Mary is pregnant. He sees a future where people live in inhabitable states, anarchy, and most depressingly, hopelessness. He is certain that his vision of the world will come to pass in his lifetime and he can't seem to understand the idea of bringing a child into it. Toller tries his best to comfort him and talk him out of having his wife have an abortion, but he does take into consideration his whole lecture on the environmental downfall of man. Many times throughout the movie, the topic of environmentalism and global warming injects itself into conversation and it starts to change Toller's views on the role of the church in the world.
       Besides the political sides of this movie, I also was surprised by some odd technical choices. First of all, the movie opens up with a shot of the church that inches closer and closer as the opening credits pop up on the screen. That is the only camera movement we see for the first half of the film. Every other shot is completely still and angled in a certain way as if to submerge the viewer in a "fly on the wall" perspective. It's not until you get to the second half of the movie that the camera decides to move around more and have more tracking shots. Another odd choice was the almost complete absence of music. There are, I think, 4 moments in the film where there is music present and it never crescendos to anything more than atmospheric ambiance. I'm going to assume these were intentional choices and will leave that to the deeper, analytic portions of this movie.
        I did find the movie enjoyable. It is very slow paced and reaches its climax in a disturbing, morbid fashion. The character of Toller is kinda hard to like or understand though. Throughout the movie, he keeps a journal that expresses his toils with despair, but when he is out in the world, his priestly facade is hard to break through. Towards the end, once he reaches a certain point in his spiral, his emotional side comes out and its pretty morbid. His relationship with Mary was hard to follow. There is one particular scene in the movie involving the two of them that I found almost ridiculous because it breaks the tonal continuity of the film and just felt out of place. Also, at the beginning of the film during the scene with Toller and Micheal, it got a little too preachy for my taste. I felt like I was being spoon-fed the forthcoming ideas and themes that would later come out during the movie.
       Something that I did like was was the religious atmosphere. This story of a guys depression spiral juxtaposed with a religious lifestyle poses some very interesting thoughts and questions and it's probably the film's best trait.
       Overall, if you're looking for a thought-provoking experience, this might be worth your time. Try not to check out in the middle because of how slow it is because you might miss out on a good experience. I'm sure it's way deeper than it is and if I gave it more thought, I'm sure I would understand it more, but as first impressions go it was a bit duller than I thought it was going to be. That doesn't mean it's not good. Its certainly fascinating to watch despair have such an impact on humans, but I just couldn't get as into it as I wanted to. 7/10