Like the Gospels, this review contains spoilers.
With Reverend Toller, Schrader has finally gotten his hands on the real thing, a troubled spiritual seeker who—like the protagonist of Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (1951)—keeps a journal as a form of prayer. As Toller explains to Michael, he served for years as an army chaplain and, over his wife’s objections, persuaded his son to enlist in the wake of 9/11; after the son was killed in Iraq, the minister’s wife left him and he retired from the military. “Whatever despair you feel about bringing a child into this world cannot equal the despair of taking a child from it,” he tells Michael. The minister deflects romantic overtures from Esther (Victoria Hill), the choir director at the giant Abundant Life Ministries center not far away, and their conversation hints at a past sexual encounter that now fills him with chagrin. When Toller goes to the toilet, his urine is pink with blood, and when the church custodian takes out the garbage, he finds a bag from the rectory that’s filled with empty liquor bottles.
Directed by Paul Schrader. R, 113 min.
