Ethan Hawke is a great actor, and that's why I decided to give this film a chance, in that sense, I got what I wanted, a good performance, and also, accompanied by an acceptable direction, however, I feel that the work in general has disappointed me a little, read on if you want to know why.

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>>Source <<

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Year: 2017
Category: Drama.
Director: Paul Schrader.
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, Cedric Kyles, Victoria Hill, Philip Ettinger, Michael Gaston, Bill Hoag.

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Plot

The film tells the story of a protestant minister who faces issues of faith and morality while serving as pastor of a shrinking historic church.

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Opinion

After watching the film I have a feeling of disappointment, and not because the film is totally bad, because it is not, it has acceptable things, the direction work is good and the performances too, the problem I think is in the script, also realized by Paul Schrader the director of the film, so that although he could perfectly direct the work, in my opinion he could not make a good script, leaving me with the feeling that an opportunity has been wasted.

The first thing we can see at the beginning of the film is darkness, but slowly the camera, which is at ground level, approaches a church, and as it does, everything starts to light up, a kind of metaphor maybe? either way it was very well made.

In the film we are following the life of the Reverend Ernst Toller of the First Reformed Church in Snowbridge, who has just started to write a diary in which he intends to write his thoughts honestly, and then burn it, what would be a kind of practice to clear up his mind and emotions. In turn, Ernt seems to have a kind of alcohol addiction, probably generated as a product of a past event that was also the main reason why he became reverend.

Mary Mensana, a young pregnant girl, asks Ernst to please talk to her husband, Michael Mensana, who is dedicated to ecological activism, and that as a result of his fanaticism and devotion to the environmental cause, wants to make his wife Mary aborts, because he considers that there is no future for the humans and that bad times are just around the corner. The Reverend Ernst will be greatly influenced by Michael, who really was not very devoted to Christianity, so from his encounter with him, he will have another perspective on the matter, and will begin to behave in a more emotional way.

What bothers me about the film is that they had all the ingredients to do something more significant, but in my opinion the director decided to turn the film into a political campaign in favor of climate change, giving biased information and looking generate a moral questioning in the viewer so that it supports certain policies, and for that reason the film loses any really genuine factor and becomes propaganda.

On the other hand, I must also mention the enormously positive side and is that the film has a good direction, and great performances, so even though we find a film of the drama genre, the film maintains a rhythm and interest of the spectator.

Ethan Hawke is a great actor and he does really well, in the same way Cedric Kyles and Victoria Hill who played really convincing characters for me, and that although they do not appear on screen for long time, they managed to transmit dimension and personality. Amanda Seyfried does it very well, her character does not have a really unusual personality, but when it comes to the assigned role, she does an acceptable job.

In short, it is a film that can have very good characteristics, which can make any viewer enjoy the work, but at the same time it makes a few mistakes that I personally could not ignore.

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Trailer