In 'First Reformed,' Ethan Hawke gave the performance of the year — and of his brilliantly unorthodox career
In "First Reformed," Ethan Hawke almost never raises his voice. His character, the Rev. Ernst Toller, is a former Army chaplain who leads a small Protestant church in upstate New York, where he delivers sermons that are notably devoid of fire or brimstone. He speaks in a gravelly rasp of a voice, hushed and solemn, signaling the depth of his spiritual convictions but also the despair that has recently overwhelmed them.
Life has dealt Toller a series of blows: a dead son, a failed marriage, a cancer diagnosis. But Hawke's grave, understated performance suggests that the character's malaise may have a more mysterious origin. The actor's handsome face is unusually pale and gaunt, his brow corrugated with worry. His eyes, so often alive with excitement, peer out with cold resignation at something dreadful on the horizon.
Why has God fallen both deaf and silent? Toller finds a troubling, infuriating answer when he meets a radical environmental activist, Michael (Philip Ettinger), spreading his own gospel of panic at Earth's rapidly accelerating decline. Toller tries to counsel Michael, but it is Michael who counsels him: Taking up the younger man's cause, the priest becomes
