"First Reformed": Can God Forgive Us?

When I finished watching First Reformed for the first time, I was certain of one thing and one thing only: this is not a film for everyone. That was one of the few things I was certain of after finishing the movie. For me to fully emphasize this point, a detailed explanation of the movie’s plot will be needed, so here is a major SPOILER ALERT to anyone who hasn’t yet seen the movie and would like to. If you don’t want to know how the film ends (or really anything else about it, for that matter), I would advise you to stop reading now.

If you’re still here, it can only mean one of three things: You’ve seen the movie and are looking for others’ opinions; you haven’t seen the movie and aren’t interested in seeing it; or you haven’t seen the movie and are very interested in seeing it, only you don’t heed spoiler warnings. No matter which reason you’re here, I’m glad you are. Here is a brief overview, and my interpretation of First Reformed.

The plot of First Reformed concerns a middle-aged reverend named Ernst Toller. Portrayed captivatingly by Ethan Hawke, Toller is a likable yet lonely man who serves as pastor of a largely unattended church in upstate New York. The movie begins as he decides to keep a journal for twelve months, written in longhand, describing the events and thoughts of every day. After one service, a young woman named Mary (Amanda Seyfried) approaches him and asks him to counsel her husband Michael (Philip Ettinger), a radical environmentalist who has been arrested numerous times for unruly protests on global warming. Mary is pregnant, and Michael wants her to have an abortion, horrified by the idea of his child growing up in a world that, he believes, will become someday uninhabitable due to climate change. Toller agrees to meet with him, and after a long debate with Michael about the reality (or lack thereof) of climate change and whether or not Mary should abort their child, he finally narrows all of it down to one single thing. It’s not really about Mary, Toller says, or the baby. It’s about Michael’s own despair. “Courage is the solution to despair,” he tells Michael. “Reason provides no answers. I can’t know what the future will bring. We have to choose despite uncertainty. Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind simultaneously: hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself.”

After pondering his statement, Michael asks a question in return. “Can God forgive us for what we’ve done to this world?”

“Who can know the mind of God?” Toller replies. “But we can choose to live a righteous life. Grace covers us all.” His statement seems to resonate with Michael, and the two agree to meet again the following day. Before they have the chance, however, Mary calls Toller in a panic, asking him to come to their house. Upon arriving, he sees what Mary has discovered: a suicide vest laced with explosives, crafted by Michael himself. Opting not to tell the police right away, Toller takes the vest, saying he will dispose of it, and plans to delicately bring up the subject during his next conversation with Michael. However, upon reaching the spot they were supposed to meet, he finds Michael has committed suicide with a shotgun blast to the head.

This seems to mark the beginning of Toller’s downward spiral, which we bear witness to throughout the duration of the film. At the same time, however, it’s not hard to see that he’s been an unhappy person for a very long time. In his earlier conversation with Michael, he shared a bit of his backstory: he was formerly a Navy chaplain, as his father was before him, and to carry on the family tradition, he strongly encouraged his son to enlist. His wife was thoroughly against the idea, but his son, Joseph, enlisted anyway – and six months later, he was dead in Iraq. The loss destroyed Toller’s marriage, and it wasn’t long before he left the military, landed a job at First Reformed, and moved into his solitary, run-down parsonage. This story was the basis behind his encouragement for Michael not to convince Mary to have an abortion. “Whatever despair you feel about bringing a child into this world cannot equal the despair of taking a child out of it,” he promised.

Setting aside every nuance of his character, Toller is, ultimately, a man struggling with his faith. Perhaps I am biased because I watched the film at a time when I, too, was doubting my beliefs, but I think this is part of what makes the movie as wholly effective as it is. To see this very human struggle – one most people in the world have likely dealt (or will, if they haven’t yet), whether they’re a believer of the Christian faith or not – makes for an introspective viewing. In a way, Toller is being faced with the questions everyone on earth has to face at one point or another: who he truly is, what he truly believes, and whether those two things are really enough to get him through the hard times.

As his mental state declines, he goes to a fellow pastor in what seems to be a feeble cry for help, and the man instructs him simply to pray more and read his Bible. As someone who’s grown up in the church and struggled with mental health issues myself, this rang personally and painfully true. The guy is seemingly blind to Toller’s despair, leaving him with nothing but heaps of empty phrases and platitudes. He certainly doesn’t represent every Christian I’ve met in terms of his response to mental illness, but unfortunately, he represents more than I’d like to remember; more than most of us would perhaps like to believe. These are the people who give advice that isn’t inherently bad – after all, spending time in prayer and reading the Bible are two of the most beneficial things one can do for themselves. They’re the people who look at you with confusion and reprehension when you confess that those things didn’t take your suffering away. Once you’ve prayed until your knees are sore and read your Bible through and through, they are the people who make you feel like you are a lost cause, who leave you wondering if perhaps you didn’t pray the right way, or if God is punishing you for something you didn’t know you did wrong. After Toller receives this advice, he goes home and adds a hauntingly, punishingly accurate entry to his journal: “How easily they talk about prayer,” he writes, “those who have never truly prayed.”

As time passes, Toller neglects his physical health and begins drinking more heavily. Due to his symptoms of stomach pain and vomiting, his doctor suspects he may have stomach cancer, but Toller puts off getting further testing done. He researches climate change, becoming slowly obsessed with Michael’s cause, and mentions more than once that he feels unable to talk to God. Respecting the request in Michael’s living will, Toller holds his memorial service at a toxic-waste dump, where his ashes are scattered. He sustains a close relationship with Mary, who plans to leave town and move in with her sister in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, plans are being made to celebrate the 250th anniversary of First Reformed with a reconsecration service. Toller’s colleagues at Abundant Life don’t want him to bring his political ideation into the service, but he believes environmentalism is a simple matter of Christian stewardship.

As the reconsecration service approaches, Toller helps Mary pack up her house. She wants to come to the service, but he forcefully tells her to stay away. After a short time, it is revealed why: on the day of the reconsecration, he puts on Michael’s suicide vest – which he previously told Mary he would destroy – and plans to attend the service laced with explosives. At the last minute, however, he looks out the window and sees Mary approaching the building, having come despite Toller’s insistence she do the opposite. Suddenly overcome with guilt over what he was about to do, he removes the vest and, in a horrific act of penance, wraps himself in barbed wire. The scene is permeated with the choir director’s singing of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” at the service next door; the soft, comforting sound being paired with this bloody scene makes it all the more disturbing. He puts his clothes on over the wire, blood seeping through the white material, and pours himself a glass of Drano. He prepares to drink it, but Mary enters the room at the last minute, causing him to throw the glass to the side and passionately embrace her. The camera circles around them, showcasing their long, heartfelt kiss, and then the movie ends.

When I watched the movie for the first time, my DVD player temporarily malfunctioned about halfway through, causing the screen to go suddenly black. I was convinced it had happened again when the movie cut off in that final scene. The hymn plays throughout the scene, and the words were heard as follows: Leaning, leaning / Safe and secure from all alarms / Leaning, lean - then, nothing. A blank screen. I was already reaching for the DVD remote, about to turn the player back on when the ending credits appeared. I was perhaps angrier than a movie had ever made me, and hideously unsatisfied. The movie essentially ended in the middle of a sentence. I wanted the last 113 minutes of my life back.

But, after a night of sleeping on it, a second viewing, and reading a few insightful reviews online, I started to put aside my disgust with the abrupt ending and come to a conclusion about what the movie was truly trying to say. Certainly, there are some political messages to be found, with the aspect of climate change playing such a major part in the story. But as opposed to other movies of its kind, there is more to be found here besides social commentary. In fact, as far as I can tell, there are two simple but pivotal story points that must be returned to in order to get the full picture of the film. One of these can be seen in the conversation between Toller and Michael about hope and despair. Looking back at the scene after finishing the story, Toller’s words begin to take on a new meaning. “Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind simultaneously: hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself.”

This simple idea, this concept of how to exist with these two states of mind, is one that both Toller and Michael are faced with in the course of the film. The acceptance of despair being an inescapable part of life, and hope being a vital part to go along with it, is an idea that the two men, in the beginning, seem to face differently. Michael meets this idea with a total lack of hope, feeling such despair that it drives him to suicide. Toller, on the other hand, begins with hope, and slowly begins to degrade into despair as he becomes obsessed with the same cause Michael had been devoted to. Toller’s story is largely dependent on the battle between hope and despair, and ultimately, the conclusion he comes to is unclear.

According to director Paul Schrader, the ending was left purposefully ambiguous and can be

The other equally important driving force to First Reformed can, in a way, be whittled down to a single question: Can God forgive us? It’s the question Michael asks Toller following their pivotal conversation, and it’s the question Toller repeats to a colleague during his own downfall. He even posts it on the church’s marquee for the world to see. For Michael, it was a question solely concerning what he perceived as the destruction of our planet; but for Toller, God’s mercy is a struggle for him to grasp in many ways. Can God forgive him for the death of his son, which he feels responsible for? Can God forgive him for not being able to save Michael, despite the warning signs that were positioned all around him? Can God forgive him for coming horrifyingly close to walking into a church full of people with the intention to blow them, and himself, to pieces? It may be a combination of all of these things that leads him to wrap himself in the barbed wire, falling to his knees underneath all the grief, guilt, and shame his actions have caused him (and those around him). And it is certainly due to his inability to live concurrently with both hope and despair.

But in the final moment, the darkness of his room is brightened with the light that floods in as Mary enters, and the two of them share a tender embrace. Over time, I concluded that the ending’s lack of clarity is actually what makes First Reformed one of the most personal viewing experiences I’ve sat through. According to director Paul Schrader, the ending was left purposefully ambiguous, and its climax is a matter of simple opinion. In other words, it’s up to us. We are left, just as Michael was and just as Toller was, to make our own decisions regarding hope and despair. Did Toller drink the Drano, succumbing to a similar fate as Michael? Or did he throw it away and embrace the messiness that is life, the beautiful, infuriating, at times unbearable reality of having to live with both hope and despair at once? As viewers, we get to choose what we believe, both in this fictional story and in the reality it represents. I was satisfied with my choice; I hope you are satisfied with yours.