First Reformed

"Writer/director Paul Schrader’s First Reformed is an utterly mesmerising, elegant work of faith and rage."

"Schrader courts respectability and leaves it in the dust, getting stoned on excess. But make no mistake: He's still one hell of a filmmaker."

"Schrader 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."

"A deeply felt, deeply thought picture; impressive in its seriousness and often gripping in the way it frames itself as a debate and a sermon."

"Thoughtful, 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."

"What 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."

"There's not quite enough oomph or style in the filmmaking to make you forget about the schematic nature of the dramatic construct."