First Reformed - Review

Paul Schrader is most famous for writing the incendiary Taxi Driver in 1976. 42 years later, Schrader has created another film just as provocative and combustible in First Reformed.
It is also features one of Ethan Hawke's finest performances as Reverend Toller.
Toller is a man who is seemingly on a path to self-destruction. One brought upon by a crisis in faith as he tries to balance the tightrope between hope and despair.
Put out to pasture at the First Reformed church, which acts more as a tourist trap and souvenir shop than a place for worship and congregation.
Without the ability to receive or give his own confession, he begins keeping a diary in which he pours his innermost thoughts as frequently as he pours whisky or the communion wine.
In his voiceover narration, expressing disillusionment and indifference of the world in which he resides, this is the most apparent reference to Taxi Driver and the idea that Toller is this generation's Travis Bickle.
The battle between hope and despair is highlighted in a young couple that come to Toller for advice. Mary (Amanda Seyfried), the pregnant virginal presence, who offers hope for the world through new life. Her husband, Michael, is the despair. An environmental campaigner who wants Mary to have an abortion, believing it to be wrong to bring a baby into a world that is determined to destroy itself.
As he counsels the couple, the creeping dread and despair grows like a cancer as he learns more of Michael's research and impending actions. But there is a glimmer of hope in Mary, who Toller comes to believe that he can save. Similar to Bickle's relationship with Iris.
Yet Reverend Toller is the very embodiment of hypocrisy. He bemoans the church's lack of action in preserving the environment, God's creation. However despite various people including doctors telling him that he is very ill and must take better care of himself, Toller continues to drink to excess every night while writing his journal. His personal catharis.
Hawke excels in the role and brings a believable pain and anguish to the screen. Here is a man who was born into the church through his family but also was part of the military. This led to him losing his family when his son signed up for the army and was killed in combat. A man who knows nothing but the church but is no longer cut out for that life. A impossible mixture like oil and water. Or whisky and Pepto Bismol in one of the film's most striking images and the point of no return for the character.
This is all leading to the final sermon of Reverend Toller as the various plot threads slowly tie together into a climax that is one of the most shocking and memorable of recent years.
First Reformed is one of the year's best films and a return to form for one of cinema's most inflammatory filmmakers.

4 stars

Boyhood - review

Every now and then a film comes along that is hailed as "the film of our lifetime" but Boyhood could have a legitimate case to hold that title as it is literally the film of a lifetime.

With his Before Trilogy, Linklater has revisited characters nine and eighteen years after their original meeting but Boyhood is something else entirely.

It is a unique cinematic portrait which saw Richard Linklater film 7 year old Ellar Coltrane over a period of twelve years to chart the progression of the character Mason from a boy to a young man in the world's greatest and most detailed time lapse video ever made.

Just as Mason grows and develops into a confident young man, Coltrane improves the older he gets, delivering a very honest and naturalistic performance.

Linklater's own daughter Lorelei plays Mason's sister (and gets it straight away, really impressing in the early scenes) with Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke (who between this and the Before Trilogy must be the most patient and loyal actor in Hollywood) lending experience and stability as his estranged parents.

Just like life, the movie is more than the sum of its parts. Linklater purposefully avoids it being a check list of Mason's major milestones (first kiss, first fight, first car, first drink, first job, losing virginity, etc, etc). Instead it focuses on the quieter moments (a walk down a street chatting to a girl, discussing the possibility of a new Star Wars film during a late night camping trip with his dad, giggling over a Victoria's Secrets catalogue).

They might not be the moments that would play in a greatest hits package of your life but they all go towards making you what you are today.

Because Boyhood is not just about Mason's life. It is impossible to watch the film and not have some form of personal reflection during it.

Whether you are a parent, remembering things about your own kids, or if you grew up during that time period, reminiscing about the time you queued up at midnight to get the last Harry Potter book, spent hours debating future Star Wars plots or snuck out to go party with your friends.

"Life moves pretty fast. if you don't stop to look around once in a while, you might miss it" and Richard Linklater has perfectly captured this in 146 mins but they also say "life's too short" and I could have happily watch a few more hours of this incredible and unique piece of cinema.

5 stars