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First Reformed

189 statements
36 feature instances
9 referencing feature instances

First Reformed	type	TVTItem
First Reformed	label	First Reformed
First Reformed	page	FirstReformed
First Reformed	comment	First Reformed is a 2017 drama film written and directed by Paul Schrader, starring Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried.46-year-old Reverend Ernst Toller (Hawke) is the pastor at the historic First Reformed Church in upstate New York. Toller is dealing with a midlife crisis, struggling with the death of his son in war, a divorce, and failing health. These issues in Toller's life become more pointed when a new pregnant congregant, Mary Mensana (Seyfried), asks him to speak to her husband Michael, who Toller will learn is an environmentalist concerned about bringing another human life into what he already sees as a world doomed because of man's role in climate change.The film premiered in August 2017 at the Venice Film Festival, and was officially released on May 18, 2018, distributed by A24. It opened to universal critical acclaim, with particular praise for Hawke's performance, and has been called Schrader's best work in years.
First Reformed	fetched	2023-11-21T20:16:33Z
First Reformed	parsed	2023-11-21T20:16:33Z
First Reformed	processingComment	Dropped link to God: Not a Feature - ITEM
First Reformed	isPartOf	DBTropes
First Reformed / int_1869b4b1	type	Unreliable Narrator
First Reformed / int_1869b4b1	comment	Unreliable Narrator: Toller's diary Framing Device starts out as unflinchingly honest, with him writing a stream of consciousness he refuses to edit that more or less accurately reflects the events happening on screen. As he begins to fall deeper into despair, Toller writes that he woke up feeling better while he spirals into drink, hallucinates flying around the world with Mary, and plans a Suicide Attack on First Reformed with Michael's vest.
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First Reformed / int_21d70919	type	Crapsack World
First Reformed / int_21d70919	comment	Crapsack World: How both Michael and Reverend Toller see the state of the world, having to deal with fears of climate change, political division and extremism, and the loss of loved ones.
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First Reformed / int_22cf536c	type	Chekhov's Gun
First Reformed / int_22cf536c	comment	Chekhov's Gun: If you're wondering why the camera spends so long watching Toller pour Drano down his toilet, it's because he'll use it to attempt to poison himself later. Similarly, a length of barbed wire that Toller pulls off the church grounds ends up playing a role in the climax.
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First Reformed / int_337a0f4	type	TrailersAlwaysLie
First Reformed / int_337a0f4	comment	Trailers Always Lie: The trailer would lead you to think First Reformed is about a priest trying to prevent one of his parishioners from carrying out a suicide bombing. That is the case, but only for the first half of the movie before Toller considers carrying out the attack himself.
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First Reformed / int_3f43b20f	type	A Saint Named Mary
First Reformed / int_3f43b20f	comment	A Saint Named Mary: Mary is depicted as a pious and kind woman who has the most honest faith of anyone in the movie. Notably, she's also a mother whose child is a part of the next generation her husband thinks will be doomed due to climate change. Lastly, she also seems to save Toller from suicide in the ending.
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First Reformed / int_42215dce	type	Ambiguous Ending
First Reformed / int_42215dce	comment	Ambiguous Ending: Is Toller's reunion with Mary a real hope of salvation for him, or is he simply hallucinating her arrival as he dies? Schrader himself has confirmed that both answers are equally valid.
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First Reformed / int_5017da77	type	Church of Saint Genericus
First Reformed / int_5017da77	comment	Church of Saint Genericus: While First Reformed's name and other characteristics suggest membership in the Reformed Church in America or some related denomination, it seems to be kept afloat solely as a pet project of a nearby megachurch's pastor, whose denominational affiliation (if he has one) is unclear. Toller himself seems less inspired by traditional Reformed theology than by the Catholic Thomas Merton.
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First Reformed / int_56b53152	type	Green Aesop
First Reformed / int_56b53152	comment	Green Aesop: Though the film doesn't have an "aesop" in terms of telling people exactly how to respond to pollution and climate change, it doesn't pull any punches in pointing out how terrifying the future could be and criticizing industrialists for contributing the most to ecological devastation.
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First Reformed / int_61375e57	type	BigDamnKiss
First Reformed / int_61375e57	comment	Big Damn Kiss: Played with. At the end, Mary interrupts Toller's suicide attempt and the two run into each other's arms and kiss passionately while the camera swoops around them. On the other hand, a hymn is playing and the whole thing could just be a Dying Dream.
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First Reformed / int_6bda9a30	type	Meaningful Name
First Reformed / int_6bda9a30	comment	Meaningful Name: Ernst Toller shares his name with a German playwright and political radical of the last century. And of course, there's that pregnant woman named Mary... Michael's last name "Mensana" can also be seen as a highbrow pun on either "manzana," Spanish for apple (as in the fruit from the Biblical tree of knowledge), or the beginning of the Latin phrase "Mens sana in corpore sano," literally "a healthy mind in a healthy body," suggesting Michael's despair at the state of the world is the beginning of Toller's fall from grace or at least a rational response that contrasts against Toller's faith.
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First Reformed / int_6d332aea	type	Driven to Suicide
First Reformed / int_6d332aea	comment	Driven to Suicide: Michael shoots himself in the park after asking Reverend Toller to meet him there.
First Reformed / int_6d332aea	featureApplicability	1.0
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First Reformed / int_7464705c	type	Arc Words
First Reformed / int_7464705c	comment	Arc Words: The phrase "Will God forgive us?" in reference both to the destruction of the environment and Toller's personal angst.
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First Reformed / int_75538142	type	Friend to All Children
First Reformed / int_75538142	comment	Friend to All Children: Toller is good with kids and appears to be quite popular with most of the youth group, likely because he has no problem with speaking to them like adults. It's implied that this is one of the main reasons Abundant Life keeps him around. He gets worse with them over time as he struggles to hide his growing despair.
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First Reformed / int_7e1eccce	type	Orbital Kiss
First Reformed / int_7e1eccce	comment	Orbital Kiss: The final scene is the camera frantically spinning around two people kissing as a choir sings in praise of God. It just so happens to one of the pair is our main character, a delusional, celibate priest wearing a suicide vest. The high romance mixed with the priest's delusion, faith, and suicidal ideation adds a lot of ambiguity to this scene.
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First Reformed / int_7eebe99c	type	The Alcoholic
First Reformed / int_7eebe99c	comment	The Alcoholic: Toller gets drunk a lot to cope with his growing despair over the future and his grief over the loss of his son
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First Reformed / int_8387bb18	type	Good Girls Avoid Abortion
First Reformed / int_8387bb18	comment	Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Mary first approaches Toller because her husband wants her to get an abortion, and she doesn't. Unlike many examples of this trope, the issue isn't personal responsibility or even the humanity of the child, but whether there's hope for the future of the world.
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First Reformed / int_87bb6874	type	Villain with Good Publicity
First Reformed / int_87bb6874	comment	Villain with Good Publicity: Balq donates substantially to charitable causes, keeps Abundant Life and First Reformed operating, makes a big deal of his plant's efforts towards sustainability, and is Nice to the Waiter when he buys the "organic" apple pie at the local Greasy Spoon. He's also totally fine with his company's substantial contribution to climate change and other environmental disasters, flexes his influence to prevent the church from making political statements against big business, and blames Toller for Michael's suicide.
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First Reformed / int_88cee6e2	type	Abhorrent Admirer
First Reformed / int_88cee6e2	comment	Abhorrent Admirer: Esther and her romantic advances are reprehensible to her ex-lover Toller, who resents her concern over his health and happiness (he's secretly dying, by the way).
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First Reformed / int_9245d989	type	Sinister Minister
First Reformed / int_9245d989	comment	Sinister Minister: Toller is one of the more complicated examples, as the film casts him in an immensely sympathetic light. That doesn't change the fact that he becomes more and more misanthropic as the film goes on, to the point of wishing for the death of humanity. Were it not for Mary attending the reconfirmation, he would have committed an eco-terrorist Suicide Attack on his own church that would have killed or injured dozens of people if successful.
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First Reformed / int_95c2a9dd	type	Outliving One's Offspring
First Reformed / int_95c2a9dd	comment	Outliving One's Offspring: Toller's only child was killed fighting in the Middle East, which especially haunts him because he urged him to sign up.
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First Reformed / int_9b0f37de	type	Contemplate Our Navels
First Reformed / int_9b0f37de	comment	Contemplate Our Navels: In response to being accused of ignoring climate change, Pastor Jeffers accuses of Toller (and his idol, Thomas Merton) of only thinking of the church philosophically and theologically and doing next to nothing to actually do God's work. He's certainly got a point, since Toller spends more of the movie writing in his journal than just about anything else.
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First Reformed / int_a679184b	type	Due to the Dead
First Reformed / int_a679184b	comment	Due to the Dead: An unusual funeral takes place in which the deceased's remains are put to rest at a toxic-waste site while the choir sings Neil Young's "Who's Gonna Stand Up (And Save the Earth)." When Balq complains about how political it is, Toller protests that he was following the deceased's explicit instructions.
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First Reformed / int_b035720c	type	Toxic, Inc.
First Reformed / int_b035720c	comment	Toxic, Inc.: Balq's company is portrayed with reference to little more but the negative impact they have on the environment.
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First Reformed / int_c39846a3	type	Pride
First Reformed / int_c39846a3	comment	Pride: Toller quotes from Thomas Merton that one species of pride is despair, choosing to believe one's knowledge of the evils of the world is more certain than God's ability to bring out good from them. He later reminds himself of the sentiment when writing about how much he wishes young people liked him and his growing inability to pray.
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First Reformed / int_c660bc15	type	Fan Disservice
First Reformed / int_c660bc15	comment	Fan Disservice: Good news for Ethan Hawke fans: he does take his shirt off. Bad news: he promptly wraps his torso in barbed wire and gets covered in blood.
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First Reformed / int_cbe687ab	type	Corrupt Corporate Executive
First Reformed / int_cbe687ab	comment	Corrupt Corporate Executive: Ed Balq is a local industrialist who donates to virtuous causes but whose company is a major polluter.
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First Reformed / int_e16cd2c8	type	Grief-Induced Split
First Reformed / int_e16cd2c8	comment	Grief-Induced Split: It's implied that Toller got divorced because his wife blamed him for convincing their son to join the military, where he was killed in action.
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First Reformed / int_ea2e9f2d	type	No Ending
First Reformed / int_ea2e9f2d	comment	No Ending: Mary enters Toller's home just as he is about to poison himself. The two embrace and kiss passionately. The camera swoops around them — and the film abruptly cuts to black.
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First Reformed / int_edaedf90	type	Vomit Discretion Shot
First Reformed / int_edaedf90	comment	Vomit Discretion Shot: Toller is seen leaning over a toilet getting sick, which is one of many instances of Foreshadowing for his failing health.
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First Reformed / int_f13a0451	type	Suicide Attack
First Reformed / int_f13a0451	comment	Suicide Attack: Toller's goal at the climax. He calls it off, however.
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First Reformed / int_f6d623ca	type	Eco-Terrorist
First Reformed / int_f6d623ca	comment	Eco-Terrorist: Michael is flirting with attacking some major polluters early in the movie, having done time in jail for an unspecified act of non-violent protest; then Mary discovers that he has a suicide-bomb vest in the garage. Michael dies before going through with it, but then Toller almost uses the vest himself before backing out at the last minute.
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First Reformed / int_f76842b1	type	The Fundamentalist
First Reformed / int_f76842b1	comment	The Fundamentalist: One young man in Toller's youth group is a typical portrait of a conservative Christian, who sneers at the mention of the poor and goes on a tirade about Muslims and prayer in schools. Toller and his fellow priest talk about why they see more and more young "Jihadists" and conclude that they fall prey to extremism due to extreme certainty in the world. Whatever the case, this creates a disconnect between Toller and the young people and further accelerates his Crisis of Faith.
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First Reformed / int_f792bc7b	type	Dying Dream
First Reformed / int_f792bc7b	comment	Dying Dream: The ending is so over-the-top and strange that it is easy to interpret the dramatic kiss between Toller and Mary as a vision he has upon killing himself.
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First Reformed / int_fd86da63	type	Crisis of Faith
First Reformed / int_fd86da63	comment	Crisis of Faith: Toller, as a result of having lost his son in war, his subsequent divorce, and his failing health, is losing faith not in God, but humanity. He just can't believe God loves him or the world, so he believes He is bringing it to judgement for man's sins.
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First Reformed / int_fff371b4	type	Death Seeker
First Reformed / int_fff371b4	comment	Death Seeker: Toller neglects his obvious health problems throughout the film, but this trope reaches its peak by the climax. Initially, he plans to use an explosive vest to destroy his own church for its 250th anniversary service. He puts an end to this upon seeing Mary at the ceremony, and instead wraps barbed wire around his torso and tries to kill himself by drinking drain cleaner. However, Mary arrives and stops him at the last second.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

First Reformed	hasFeature	A Saint Named Mary / int_b903f5ec
First Reformed	hasFeature	Contemplate Our Navels / int_b903f5ec
First Reformed	hasFeature	Films of 2015â€“2019 / int_b903f5ec
First Reformed	hasFeature	Grief-Induced Split / int_b903f5ec
First Reformed	hasFeature	Misanthrope Supreme / int_b903f5ec
First Reformed	hasFeature	Morality Pet / int_b903f5ec
First Reformed	hasFeature	Orbital Kiss / int_b903f5ec
First Reformed	hasFeature	Pride / int_b903f5ec
First Reformed	hasFeature	The Fundamentalist / int_b903f5ec

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