Hawke plays a priest tormented by cancer, alcohol and traumatic memories in Schrader’s ferocious drama
Paul Schrader’s powerful new drama First Reformed is Shaker furniture in movie form – stark, plain, conceived in austere and intelligent good taste; beautifully made, in fact, but maybe more designed for looking at than actually sitting on. It is about a man of God and his personal spiritual ordeal, building inexorably to an apocalyptic climax. Schrader has spoken of being inspired by Pawel Pawłikowski’s Oscar-winning film Ida, but for me it was more as if Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light had been remade with Travis Bickle in the leading role.
The resemblances here to Schrader’s script for Scorsese’s 1976 classic Taxi Driver are surely deliberate. There is an unforgettably grisly moment when the tormented priest, harrowed by stomach cancer and alcoholism, pours a slug of shocking pink Pepto-Bismol into his whisky...
Paul Schrader’s powerful new drama First Reformed is Shaker furniture in movie form – stark, plain, conceived in austere and intelligent good taste; beautifully made, in fact, but maybe more designed for looking at than actually sitting on. It is about a man of God and his personal spiritual ordeal, building inexorably to an apocalyptic climax. Schrader has spoken of being inspired by Pawel Pawłikowski’s Oscar-winning film Ida, but for me it was more as if Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light had been remade with Travis Bickle in the leading role.
The resemblances here to Schrader’s script for Scorsese’s 1976 classic Taxi Driver are surely deliberate. There is an unforgettably grisly moment when the tormented priest, harrowed by stomach cancer and alcoholism, pours a slug of shocking pink Pepto-Bismol into his whisky...
- 7/12/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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