YMMV / First Reformed

• Anvilicious: As thoughtful as the script is, it is not particularly subtle about a number of its themes and metaphors.
  • The Green Aesop is handled pretty realistically in terms of digging into the causes and long-term effects of climate change, but just in case you don't get why Michael is afraid of the future, his computer has a global temperature map and a dying polar bear on a melting ice cap. And that's not even getting into when Toller hallucinates flying through a fiery trash wasteland.
  • The name of the financially successful megachurch that owns First Reformed is "Abundant Life". The church isn't necessarily evil, but its prosperity gospel, industrialist-sponsored media center, and lead pastor concerned with maintaining the church's image and finances indicates that Earthly materialism has corrupted its faith.
• Award Snub: Despite being one of the best-reviewed movies of the year, the film did not receive a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars, nor Ethan Hawke for Best Actor. Its sole nomination, for Best Original Screenplay, was, incredibly, the first-ever nomination for Paul Schrader, a man responsible for some of the most important screenplays in Hollywood history. Because of that, many observers felt he had a decent shot to win, as a sort-of "career achievement" award, but Green Book won instead. That Academy voters have notoriously short memories, and that this was released in the United States in May, makes this all sadly unsurprising. It really did not help that Schrader himself stated that he expected his loss to Green Book.
• Special Effect Failure: The occasional use of digital effects in the film are spotty at best. The most glaring examples would either be when the names of Balq Industries and Abundant Life appear to be badly photoshopped onto clearly unmarked buildings or when Jeffers' simulcast is sloppily imposed onto clearly blank screens.
• Spiritual Successor: Paul Schrader has cited both Winter Light and Diary of a Country Priest as direct influences on First Reformed. In the case of the former, both protagonists struggle with crises of faith as a result of existential threats to humanity and fail to console parishioners who are so concerned about the threats that they blow their brains out. Also, it shares numerous structural similarities to Diary of a Country Priest, which also features extensive voiceover through the protagonist's entries in his diary.
  • Schrader also considers First Reformed his successor to Taxi Driver and a bookend to his career. Aside from the obvious plot parallels, both films are structured entirely around the subjectivity of their protagonists, forcing the audience to identify with them even as they start to lose their grip on reality.
  • The film itself forms the first part of a trilogy with Schrader's subsequent The Card Counter and Master Gardener.

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