First Reformed

Opening up here a bit, so fair warning: I’ve had multiple conversations with my parents, more so my father, about spirituality, and what comes after. Personally, I can’t convince myself that anything happens. We are animals, we eat, we love each other, we have emotions, and we die. That’s about it. I’ve thought about the future. Shit everyone does. Do we want to bring new life into a depressing, crippling world? Balancing hope with despair can be tough sometimes With everything that is going on in the world today and all of the issues that our world holds, it gets tougher and tougher to see hope, and that is what Ethan Hawke’s character ultimately falls to I loved this movie so much in a depressing way. A story about a damaged, lonely, sick man taking his life because of a loss of hope. This isn’t a “you need hope!” movie. It’s not motivating. It’s not Christian propaganda. It’s **real **I also just love how this was shot. Still frames, a calming environment, and no music makes every word so much heavier. For me, this ending was great. It’s open to interpretation, but here’s mine SPOILER AHEAD There’s no way a man can be twisted in barbed wire and make out with a partner without the partner feeling it. He killed himself, and not in the way that he wanted. Even priests are damaged, lonely, and as the last scene shows, ultimately just as horny as everyone else. Ethan Hawke deserves so much credit for his performance in this. One of the best performances I’ve seen in recent memory