Paul Schrader

Malignant, The Card Counter, and Movies Going All-In

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Oscar Isaac in The Card Counter; Annabelle Wallis in Malignant

Last Sunday, the critic Walter Chaw tweeted that, because more than 90% of the new movies he watches are “pretty much the same”, he’s more likely to appreciate a film that “just cocks an arm and swings for all it’s worth”. I might quibble with the mathematical accuracy of his first statement, but despite the mixed metaphor, I’m inclined to agree with his second; even when they fail, ambitious movies tend to be more memorable than their cautious counterparts. Chaw presumably had a specific picture in mind, but this past weekend provided multiple titles that refused to play by multiplex rules. One is far better than the other, but both succeed in upending expectations and carving out their own atypical territory.

At the outset—and, in fact, for the majority of its running time—James Wan’s Malignant isn’t especially novel. Despite stemming from a nominally original screenplay by Akela Cooper, it’s another haunted-house chiller that would fit snugly inside the Conjuring cinematic universe that Wan created back in 2013. Its heroine, Madison (Annabelle Wallis, best known to me as Grace on Peaky Blinders), is plagued by visions of a malevolent spirit called Gabriel, one of those shadowy creatures who’s never quite in focus but who looks a bit like the skeleton-masked bank robbers from The Town, only blacker and nastier. In addition to somehow speaking through electronic devices like a demonic Siri, Gabriel seems to be a burgeoning serial killer, and Madison—in an arresting manipulation of the image—periodically finds her mind transported to the sites of his murders, forced to watch his grisly wet work like a helpless, paralyzed bystander. Read More

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First Reformed: Still Preaching, But Is Anyone Listening?

Jeremy BeckReviews
Ethan Hawke as a plagued preacher in "First Reformed"

Ethan Hawke has always had a crease in his face, a thin vertical line running from the center of his forehead to the bridge of his nose. But this crinkle somehow looks more pronounced in First Reformed, as though the weight of the world has been pushing in on his features and flattening the surrounding skin. Hawke is a naturally garrulous presence—recall his motormouthed writer of Richard Linklater’s Before movies, as well as his cool dad of Boyhood—which makes him a curious choice to play Reverend Toller, a solitary preacher haunted by internal demons. But just as Hawke’s career has slowly illuminated the considerable talent behind the folksy Texas charm (he’s recently done some of his best work in low-profile films like Predestination and 10,000 Saints), First Reformed gradually reveals itself as a different creature, a more subtle beast, than it first appears. What starts as a sober character study eventually transforms, almost miraculously, into… something else.

To say too much would risk spoiling the story’s surprises, but it’s important to note that the story is surprising, and that it smartly leverages our expectations against us. As you settle in to First Reformed and absorb its particular aesthetic and narrative qualities—its cramped aspect ratio, its grey palette, its solemn and solitary voiceover—you are likely to deduce that the movie will unfold as an attentive but familiar exploration of its complicated, grief-stricken hero. Your assumption will not be entirely wrong; to the last, First Reformed commits completely to its mission of understanding what makes Reverend Toller tick. But Paul Schrader, the iconoclast who wrote and directed this movie and whose name will be forever linked with his script for Taxi Driver, is not interested in making a gentle prestige picture. He goes for the throat as well as the soul. Read More

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