Doubt

PG-13	Rottentomatoes.com Rating: 78%	2008
(Thematic elements, brief language)	Picky Flicks Quote: " "Brilliant performances from Streep and Hoffman...make it well worth seeing." -Cosmo Landesman, Sunday Times (UK)	RUNTIME: 91 mins.
Visit:www.screenit.com for complete details		Movie Mood: Brainwashed

There are movies that I recommend almost entirely because they are “interesting,” meaning that while they do not, perhaps, jive with my view of the world, thrill my senses, or set my heart a-pounding, they are, nevertheless, worthy of at least one viewing because of something they do right. In the case of Doubt, it is the acting, more than anything, that elevates mildly stagnant material to a highly watchable level.

Doubt takes its two principle characters, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) and Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and pits them in a fierce battle of wills that provides the only real sparks of the entire movie, which is adapted from a play and is thus dialogue-heavy and action-light. But both actors are so fearsomely talented that the sparks, the tension, and, yes, the dread are at times considerable.

The movie opens with Father Flynn giving a sermon about the unifying properties of doubt and how it has the power to both unnerve and draw a group of people together. No one wants to doubt alone, he notes. I am always interested to see how Hollywood treats religious subject matters and characters, and here, I couldn’t help but notice that, although he is a Catholic priest, Father Flynn uses almost entirely secular examples and stories in each of his sermons, never mentioning a shred of Scripture. It seems likely that the doubt he references in his opening sermon is his own and that he has already made up his mind to side with it. He is a socially-conscious, rather than a spiritually or biblically-conscious, priest who, at one point, asks a nun named Sister James (Amy Adams), “Have you forgotten the message of our Savior? It’s love of people.” Now, while I believe that Jesus’s most crucial commands can indeed be boiled down to the essentials: Love God and Love People, I find Father Flynn’s omission of the first and emphasis on the latter skewed.

Sister Aloysius, the grim, short-tempered principal of St. Nicholas’s notices too and is displeased, though her concern has almost nothing to do with Scriptural truth and almost everything to do with an abhorrence for any boat-rocking whatsoever. What, precisely, is Father Flynn trying to accomplish with all this talk of uncertainty and questioning? He’s already on thin ice because of his fast and loose treatment of her rules and his unconventionally hip ways. But things come to a head when the school’s youngest teacher and nun, Sister James, responds to Sister Aloysius’s admonition to keep an eye out for any strange behavior from Father Flynn by informing the headmistress that she is worried about an “incident” between Father Flynn and the school’s sole black student, Donald Miller. The incident involves nothing more than Father Flynn’s calling Donald down for a chat in the middle of Sister James’s class and then Donald’s behaving a little strangely when he returns. Oh yes, and she believes she smelled alcohol on his breath.

It’s hardly worth repeating, but from the moment Sister James reluctantly mentions it to Sister Aloysisus, the latter is convinced beyond a shadow a doubt (ha!) that Father Flynn has mistreated, likely even molested, Donald Miller. She wants Father Flynn gone and feels perfectly fine with acting on her certainty alone as grounds for making sure he vamooses in a timely manner. At first, her behavior seems so irrational and typical of her “dragon” status that it’s difficult to take such a leap of faith seriously. But when she confronts Father Flynn, and he claims to be innocent while seeming anything but, one begins to wonder if the crazy dragon-lady just might be onto something.

The movie keeps you guessing until the end and never fully puts a foot down on either side of the “did he/didn’t he” pasture. It also reveals several things about Donald, including that he longs for male approval and companionship but doesn’t get either from his own father, that serve to further muddy the waters.

The “doubt” in the title can be interpreted several different ways. It can refer to Father Flynn’s skepticism, the inability of the nuns to prove anything concretely (Sister James finally decides—or claims she does anyway—that she believes Father Flynn is innocent), or a general state of uncertainty about life, but the movie’s exploration of the topic is less profound that it would like to believe. In fact, it’s a bit clunky and clichéd at times. But that does nothing to stop Meryl Streep from chomping into her testy schoolmarm role with gusto. Philip Seymour Hoffman is also very good, exuding a simultaneous charm and menace that make him hard to pin down, which is kind of the point. Amy Adams makes great use of her wide, blue eyes and musical, church-mouse voice to convey Sister James’s earnest conviction and innocence.

While not a true nailbiter, Doubt is still, as I said before, interesting, and worth a look if you would like a workshop in the art of effortless acting.

Until next Wednesday, stay picky! Your mind will thank you later.
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