After The Card Counter by Paul Schrader — let me remind you, the screenwriter of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull (co-written with Mardik Martin) — I decided to check out his previous film, the drama First Reformed. At the time, many called it Schrader’s best work, and its script was even nominated for an Oscar. 

First Reformed is the same Taxi Driver and The Card Counter, only here the lonely and deeply traumatized man is the pastor of one of the oldest churches in America. We are invited to watch how the character’s personal crisis becomes intertwined with his professional one — the pastor and former soldier (Ethan Hawke), who turned to religion after the death of his son in Iraq, is experiencing a crisis of faith.

He has been unable to pray for some time, so he begins keeping a journal (this detail later appears in The Card Counter). His condition is worsened by declining health and growing concern about environmental issues. And the deeper he falls into despair, the more the pastor begins to resemble Travis Bickle — with all the consequences that follow.

An incredibly atmospheric, beautiful, and flawlessly acted film that organically combines themes of personal tragedy, a 21st-century crisis of faith, ecology, war, and terrorism.

Like the protagonist of Paul Schrader’s film The Card Counter, Reverend Ernst Toller lives in a self-imposed prison — emphasized by the narrow 1.33:1 aspect ratio — which he has locked himself into. In a church “that no one visits except tourists,” Toller spends all his time, refusing any help and only occasionally visiting the parent organization, ironically named “Abundant Life,” where everyone loves and welcomes him.

Having walled himself off from the outside world, the character is trying to hide from his traumatic past — ironically carrying out the duties of a tour guide and telling the occasional tourist about the difficult 250-year history of First Reformed.

The church building strongly resembles Toller himself. Alongside the many hardships endured by First Reformed in the past (fire, the Civil War), the old structure is in disrepair: pipes are leaking, plumbing is clogged, and the organ doesn’t work. Toller, in turn, has experienced the death of his son and the collapse of his family. In the present, he suffers from abdominal pain, kidney stones, and bleeding gums.

The pastor is in despair. He cannot pray — and so he begins writing in a journal. The crisis Toller is experiencing thus reflects a broader crisis of faith itself.

Warning: spoilers ahead.

The situation escalates when Toller, at the request of a young parishioner named Mary (Amanda Seyfried), meets with her husband Michael (Philip Ettinger), an eco-activist who is against having a child with his wife.

Stepping outside the boundaries of his small world, the pastor enters the real one — and faces problems of a much greater scale, for which he turns out to be unprepared. Not in the sense that his conversation with Michael about the fate of the planet could have saved him from suicide (as Mary rightly points out, Michael simply didn’t want to live), but in the sense that this conversation has a destructive effect on Toller himself.

What’s important here is that Toller, in essence, meets himself — a man just as trapped in his own world. Michael rarely leaves the apartment, has recently been released from prison, and sees only the negative in what’s happening to the planet. He too tries — unsuccessfully — to drown his internal pain in alcohol.

It’s as if the pastor is looking into a mirror and seeing his own future. And that future is inevitable — the suicide vest Michael prepared will end up on Toller’s own body.

During the conversation between Toller and Michael, the film’s key idea is voiced — that the essence of life lies in the conflict between two opposing ideas in our consciousness: hope and despair. “A life without despair is a life without hope.”

Throughout the entire film, Schrader introduces the viewer to all sorts of contradictions:

— the spiritual (Toller conducting a church service) and the worldly (the pastor dealing with a leaking toilet pipe),
— prayer (a conversation with God) and journaling (a confession to oneself),
— the church (First Reformed) and business (“Abundant Life”),
— physical discipline (riding a bike) and self-destruction (drinking alcohol),
— salvation (Balq donates to charity) and destruction (Balq’s factories pollute the environment),
— tragedy (a conversation about a funeral) and humor (a cheerful tune played on the church organ),
— violence (the suicide vest) and love (Toller’s kiss with Mary).

Contradictions are also discussed during Toller’s visit with the youth at “Abundant Life.” His remark that a righteous life does not guarantee prosperity causes a negative reaction among some of the young people. “Nothing but extremes,” Toller says about the teenagers. “They have no hope… They need someone to follow,” replies Reverend Jeffers (Cedric Antonio Kyles), returning to the theme of the crisis of faith.

And he turns out to be right, because Toller, having completely lost hope (also fueled by his grim medical test results), chooses a radical path — justifying his actions by turning to the text of the Bible. (Sound familiar?)

That’s why he reacts so negatively to signs of care from his ex-wife, calling them petty. In his own mind, Toller sees himself as a kind of Christ figure — atoning for humanity’s sins through his own suffering (in the final scene, he even wraps himself in barbed wire — an analog of the crown of thorns). By directly following the text of the Holy Scripture, the pastor tries to justify his faith — which, clearly, is not truly there.

Toller lives in an imaginary world, fixated on what’s wrong — like Michael or Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver. Schrader even includes a direct reference to this: a scene of the pastor driving through a dark, night-time neighborhood as grim as his thoughts.

Mary, unlike her husband, wants to live. But she too, like everyone else, is sometimes overcome by despair. And when that happens, Mary comes to Toller at night and performs a kind of “synchronization” ritual that restores inner balance. It affects the pastor as well (he sees beautiful images of nature), but only for a short time — visions of a dying world soon penetrate his consciousness again.

The final “synchronization” happens when Mary comes to Toller at the peak of his despair (his plans to blow himself up collapse with the girl’s arrival at the church). Their embrace and kiss under the words of a church hymn — “Give yourself to the will of the Almighty” — mark the union of two halves that perfectly complement each other, forming a balance born from contradictions: the death and birth of a child, complete despair in the face of death and hope for a new life.

Dear readers,
For more cinema content, including film news, fun facts, original posts, and handpicked cinema content, follow my Town.
Thank you!