A couple of years ago I wrote that I had trouble with Martin Scorsese's SILENCE, a visually beautiful movie about Jesuits in 17th-Century Japan because it was a movie about faith, a subject completely alien to me. I had exactly the opposite problem with the movie I saw with my cousin today, Paul Schrader's First Reformed (2017).

Ethan Hawke is the pastor of a tiny Dutch Reformed church in upstate New York. He has about seven communicants. The only reason his church exists at all is that it is an historically important church, about to celebrate its 250th anniversary, with a major ceremony. Mr. Hawke has major emotional issues. His son was killed Iraq, following a long family tradition of national service. His wife, played by Victoria Hill, divorced him. In the meantime, one of his congregation, pregnant Amanda Seyfritz, asks him to counsel her husband, who wants her to get an abortion. He is convinced that global warming is about to end the world and it would be wrong to bring a child into this world.

I wrote of SILENCE that I have no personal understanding of faith. Neither, apparently, does Schrader, who wrote as well as directed this movie. His take on the subject is that anything that he does not understand is nonsense, and that the motives of people are always base and evil. By the end of the movie I was deeply offended. When my cousin asked me what I thought, I replied: "Well, Mr. Schrader, f**k you too."

It is not simply the absence of anyone to admire in the movie. That is a tiresome feature of far too many modern movies that I note as a major flaw to my enjoyment. It is a major philosophic flaw of many people who, confronted with someone with opinions different from theirs, assume the basest of motivations; Mr. Schrader makes that assumption and makes it the central message of his movie. People are garbage, regardless of what they tell you. It is an argument grown distressingly common in the highest of modern political discourse and I reject it absolutely, and this movie with it.

I asked my cousin what he thought of this movie. He said "Well, a movie should show you something you haven't seen before." I agreed it had, but told him that the next time he wanted to see a movie by Mr. Schrader, he could see it without me.

I watched "A Quiet Place" and thought it was pretty satisfyingly scary. Then I watched "Hereditary" and was suitably creeped out. Then I watched "First Reformed" and was scared out of my pants.

Who knew that "First Reformed" would end up being the best horror movie of the year? Director Paul Schrader, who scripted the original "Taxi Driver," the legendary Martin Scorsese film from 1976, dusts off some of the preoccupations of that earlier film and gives us an updated version that's more in tune with our troubled current times.

Scorsese's film was about Vietnam and the mental toll it took on those who served in it. Travis Bickle, played so memorably by Robert De Niro, fought for his country and then was unceremoniously dumped back into the middle of NYC and its urban decay. He appointed himself a righteous avenging angel, determined to clean up the streets of the immorality and sleaze he saw there. His taxi was his church, and in his isolation his feverish thoughts and fantasies turned into his own twisted version of reality.

In "First Reformed," the conflict is the Gulf War rather than Vietnam, and the church is an actual church, in this case presided over by a priest who turned to the cloth after he lost his son in Iraq. Then a series of incidents with an environmental activist parishioner triggers a kindred activist spark in the priest that goes haywire, and he decides the way to prove his faith is to make mankind atone for the raping of God's creation, planet Earth.

Ethan Hawke gives a tremendous performance in this film, perhaps the best of his career. The film is one sustained note of dread, and it's incredibly bleak. It poses the question, "Is it morally justifiable to bring a child into this world knowing that that we're in the process of destroying it?" And as a father of two young boys it made me extremely uncomfortable to admit that it's probably not.

The ending of this film will likely enrage some and enrapture others. I can't talk too much without spoiling it, but I thought it was brilliant. One of the major themes of the movie is the choice we must make between hope and despair, and I can't think of a better way to make that point than by making us have to choose how this movie actually ends.

"First Reformed" crawled into my head and has stayed there haunting it for days. I might see movies I like more yet this year, but I can't imagine I'll see many that have had quite the same impact.

Grade: A+

The film centers on Reverend Toller of the First Reformed Church and souvenir shop. He keeps a journal of his activity which wasn't bad except he reads to us in monotone his boring writings. He counsels one person who is an environmental activist. Toller sees his point of view that we need to protect God's creation and be good stewards of the planet. Toller is also ill and we suspect stomach cancer.

Toller must plan for the 250 year celebration of the church as he explores his options.

Ethan Hawk made the film extremely boring. Amanda Seyfried had a normal role and was also boring. Very dull writing. Oh yeah, save the planet. Maybe God wants us to cover the surface with asphalt, concrete, and plastic. I couldn't tell if the film was about Toller and human relationships with an environment background, or an environmental movie done badly.

Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity.