The trailer for Doubt, directed by John Patrick Shanley(who also wrote the screenplay and the original play, winner of a Pulitzer Prize), does the film an injustice, splicing out strangely incongruent bits that make the two protagonists, Father Flynn and Sister Aloysius Beauvier, to be overwrought, overacted. Overacted this certainly isn’t. Merryl Streep restores herself in my opinon (after almost too many unworthy roles in a row) for a nuanced, gritty performance as Sister Aloysius and Philip Seymour Hoffman . . . well, what can one say, another immersing, hypnotic outing for this master.
The essence of the story is not complex. Sister Aloysius suddenly, on the basis of scant evidence and some shadowy experiences in her past, suspects Father Flynn of abusing a vulnerable black student in St. Nicholas, the Catholic school they’re running in 1964. Flynn protests his innocence. With his dominant power over the church and his robust moral authority, he goes into battle against the frosty old-style matriarch. Caught in the middle is Sister James. a glowing, optimistic, young nun played just right by Amy Adams.
Shanley’s direction and the music cast a brooding, gothic atmosphere over the fraught tussle between the two representatives of the church. Like most movies based on plays, most of the action occurs in set pieces, but Shanley avoids any impression of staging. The notion of doubt figures strongly, and of course the overall topic plays on what we now know is an established history of covered-up abuse within the Catholic church, but to me the major theme is that of guilt and innocence. The two antagonists, and the plot, are so convincing that the viewer is never quite sure what the truth is, and after the film, my wife and I disagreed with our judgements. How guilt is decided outside due process of the law, that’s what stays with me from this engrossing 2008 film. Recommended.