Trailer Alert: ‘First Reformed’, a Film By Paul Schrader Starring Ethan Hawke

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Paul Schrader, who wrote Taxi Driver and co-wrote Raging Bull, is coming in hot with the release of First Reformed — a film starring Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, and Cedric the Entertainer.

The film, which currently has a 96-percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is the first Schrader film (written or directed) in years to have the critics gushing. Alonso Duralde of TheWrap, notes that with First Reformed, Schrader “returns to his creative sweet spot”.

Prior to his upcoming film, Schrader had a string of critical failures, with Bringing Out The Dead — a film he penned in the late-90s — being the last project to get a ‘fresh’ rating by RT. It should be noted that a few years before Dead, he wrote and directed Affliction, a severely underrated film starring Nick Nolte.

It’s safe to say this is his “comeback” film…and we all need to support it when it hits theatres.

This is the synopsis for First Reformed, per Rotten Tomatoes:

Reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) is a solitary, middle-aged parish pastor at a small Dutch Reform church in upstate New York on the cusp of celebrating its 250th anniversary. Once a stop on the Underground Railroad, the church is now a tourist attraction catering to a dwindling congregation, eclipsed by its nearby parent church, Abundant Life, with its state-of-the-art facilities and 5,000-strong flock. When a pregnant parishioner (Amanda Seyfried) asks Reverend Toller to counsel her husband, a radical environmentalist, the clergyman finds himself plunged into his own tormented past, and equally despairing future, until he finds redemption in an act of grandiose violence. From writer-director Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver; American Gigolo; Affliction) comes a gripping thriller about a crisis of faith that is at once personal, political, and planetary.

First Reformed is due for a limited U.S release on May 18th, 2018.

Hawke, who plays the lead role in the project, has been nominated for two acting Oscars in his career (as well as two for Best Adapted Screenplay) — Best Supporting Actor (Training Day, 2002; Boyhood, 2015).