Doubt (2008)

After reading all of the reviews for the film, DOUBT, I am amazed at how many people did not comprehend the complexity of this film. To really understand this film, the viewer must note the small, quiet details of this story. For example, examine the scene in which Sister Aloysius is eating with the other nuns in the school cafeteria. Notice that she is not eating but instead is taking some medicine (probably aspirin) and drinking only water. She does not comment on how she is feeling like most people would do. Instead she is carefully monitoring the entire cafeteria full of rowdy students, while helping the blind nun sitting next to her clean off her sleeves and conversing with Sister James about the welfare of a student.

Most people think that unselfishness and goodness should be wreathed in benevolent smiles and warm hugs. But I invite everyone to look below the surface of the behavior of all of the major characters in this story: Sister Aloysius, Sister James, Father Flynn, and Mrs. Miller. Where in this film does Sister Aloysius place her own welfare above anyone else in the school? It is so easy to characterized her as a "witch" or a "harpy," but I urge you to reconsider the entire situation regarding the young boy Donald Miller. Unlike a public school, a private school does not have to accept just anyone. Since Sister Aloysius is the school's principal, she probably was instrumental in allowing Donald to attend her school. She reveals that she had anticipated trouble in integrating her school by telling Sister James that she thought she would have to talk to several parents about their children. She knows her people: working class Irish and Italian folks who clearly were not going to relish their children attending school with a black student. (If you do not believe me then you should watch the South Chicago and Boston segments of "Eyes on the Prize".) Sister Aloysius's school was not under any court order to integrate like many public schools were in the 1960's and 1970's. When she wonders about the placement of Donald in the Christmas pageant, she is not trying to denigrate him; she is trying to protect the child. She is aware of the racist sentiments of her parents and students. She is a realist-not a racist. She never once shows any prejudice towards Donald or his mother. When Mrs. Miller tells her that she is interrupting work to visit the school, Sister Aloysius immediately realizes the difficulty that a working class parent has in leaving their job during the day in order to attend a school conference. Most bosses in 1960's-and even today are not supportive of a parent's need to take off work sometimes. Further, she closely watches the other students' interactions with Father Flynn. The most damning evidence she has is the way in which William London shows such repugnance at Father's Flynn's gesture of clasping his wrist. When the William jerks away, Father Flynn personally ridicules the child in front of his school mates. Yes, Sister Aloysius is abrupt, intimidating, and harsh with her students, but she does not personally insult them in front of their friends like Father Flynn does. Later, Father Flynn is regaling his fellow priests with a story about "a fat girl" or "her fat mother." He is being unkind and curiously hostile in his attitude toward women. Think about how damaging to a young girl's psyche it would be to be called fat by a popular authority like a priest-especially in the 1960's before anyone began to question the morals and hypocrisy of SOME of the priests in the Catholic Church. Pay attention to what Father Flynn really does and says. He knows that Donald is being severly punished by his father. Why doesn't he visit with Donald's parents? According to Mrs. Miller, he never talks to her personally, which is strange since Father Flynn is taking such a personal interest in this student.

There is little ambiguity to this play if you are used to observing the behavior of people as a part of your job. Nurses, teachers, police officers, EMS workers, forensic investigators, lawyers, counselors, and so on are all students of human behavior. As a person spends their life working in one of these fields, an instinct for what is "normal" and "abnormal" behavior develops. Sister Aloysius says that "she knows people"-and I believe her. She tells Sister James about another priest that she worked with in the past that had to be removed. She has witnessed evil up close, and it has certainly marked her as it marks anyone who comes into contact with it.

Watch the film again and notice where Donald Miller is sitting in the classroom and where Sister Aloysius finds the ballpoint pen. Is it possible that the pen came from Father Flynn? Maybe? True there is mainly circumstantial evidence against Father Flynn, but if you really want to know the truth of this story re-examine William London's reactions throughout the film and how Father Flynn ingratiates himself with the young boys at the school. Notice how quickly he gives up Donald Miller to save himself. He could have protected the boy by refusing to talk to her. He could have told her that the conversation was confidential between a priest and the confessor. He is Sister Aloysius's boss. In the 1960's no one questioned a priest, so why does he reveal this vulnerability? Like she asks Father Flynn, "Why do you care?" Sister Aloysius is a dragon or a gatekeeper or protector of her kingdom. It is an exhausting and thankless role that only some people have the personal courage and true empathy to undertake. Protectors must be fierce in the face of evil-especially intelligently manipulative and ingratiating evil like a pedophile. At the end when she confesses that she has "doubts", she is like any weary warrior wondering why she fights so persistently to protect the weak and the innocent in a universe in which God allows evil to flourish and prosper. Finally, as I watched this film I was reminded of one of my favorite poems that so clearly echoes this film's message:

Those Winter Sundays

BY ROBERT E. HAYDEN

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he'd call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love's austere and lonely offices?

Through Sister Aloysius and Sister James, John Patrick Shanley reveals that true love is selfless and dwells in the smallest details of life.

***This review contains PLOT SPOILERS, and is intended for those who either don't mind them, or who have already seen the film. I tried to compose a review without PLOT SPOILERS but found that I could not adequately convey that which was haunting and praiseworthy about the film. This fine film is built on a foundation of uncertainty, doubt, suspense and surprise. If you haven't seen it yet, and want to enjoy it as much as I did, don't spoil the experience -just go ahead and rent/buy it without reading further.***

I found this a magnificent film; it has haunted me fairly intensely since we saw it last night. The performances are magnificent, as you would expect from Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep. The direction and pacing suited the storyline extremely well. The film is intense and somewhat claustrophobic, with dire events playing out in a close community andwithin an enclosed space. This accentuates both the isolation and the lack of privacy of Meryl Streep's character as she must confront an awful situation, largely alone.

As it develops, the film pulls you this way and that, leading you first toward one conclusion, then to another, back and forth until by the end the terrible truth cannot be denied, despite it having been a purely circumstantial case. The film ends with the fulfillment of a great act of heroism, which is then quickly undermined, leaving the abiding faith of the protagonist deeply shaken. Because the protagonist is at first so unlikable, it takes time for the viewer to appreciate her virtues and ultimately her heroism, which renders the film's faith-shaking denouement all the more tragically felt.

I tend to rebel against most film clichés, but one that I am known to eat up -and did again in this film -is the counterpoise of an unlikable protagonist and a seductive villain. In this film, the hero is indeed deeply flawed, and while the actions of the villain are unforgivable, he is also possessed of some good intentions, or at least has convinced himself that he is.

The premise of the film is that two nuns suspect a priest in their church/school of being a child molester. They and the viewer have nothing concrete to go on, only circumstantial evidence and intuition. One of them is grabs the first opportunity to believe "proof" that her suspicions are ill-founded, whereas the other continues to believe in his guilt, and pursues him relentlessly and fearlessly until that guilt is implicitly admitted.

The film toys with the viewer a great deal, dropping suggestions of guilt, then quickly supplying exculpatory explanations. How the viewer reacts to all this may be influenced by knowledge of the breadth of this problem as it is now known to have existed in the American Catholic church over this time period. With this in mind, the viewer may be predisposed to see guilt in every circumstantial clue. But I was influenced by other things as well including the film Capturing the Friedmans, in which a family was basically railroaded on trumped-up charges of child molestation. Awareness of these conflicting potential story directions makes the viewer feel guilty, and cynical, for seeing depravity in what might actually be pure acts of kindness. One scene in which Hoffman hugs the student, who has just had his books spilled, could have been a model of Christian comfort were it not for the viewer's eyes probing for every evidence of impropriety. Absent hard proof of anything, it comes down to what we each read into what little we do see, and we feel the uneasy basis on which to make a judgment.

If there's one Hollywood cliché that really bugs me, it's the stereotype of the hypocritical sanctimonious religious blowhard, pointing the finger of accusation at everyone else while engaging in private indiscretions or even crimes. Hollywood has beaten that one to death, and I found this film refreshing in its alternative portrayal. Here the ramrod-straight religious conservative is actually the sincere, idealistic one, whereas the one who seems superficially more reasonable, pluralistic and tolerant who is actually up to no good. Philip Seymour Hoffman's character is the one who thinks it's perfectly fine if Frosty the Snowman appears in the Christmas pageant, or if students have access to ballpoint pens, in contrast with Meryl Streep's uncompromisingly rigid ways. It's his comforting demeanor that causes Amy Adams's character to drop her suspicions, and even to turn on Meryl Streep for her intolerance, which proved later to be exactly the wrong call.

Interestingly, people are at their least convincing in this film when they are making their own cases in oral conversation. I was convinced of Phillip Hoffman's character's innocence until his conversation with Amy Adams in which he sounded like a creepy NAMBLA spokesman, trying to redefine "love" to suit a private twisted purpose. And again, later in the film, even when no one has caught him doing anything, he destroys his credibility by the way that he tries to constrain Meryl Streep's avenues for checking on his past behavior. Nor does Meryl Streep do herself many favors by the way she presents herself early; she leads the viewer to deem her a heartless tyrant before later revealing her inner compassion through action. But each builds a more positive case for themselves with actions in other scenes or at least, so it seems.

The film is morally complex in that it shows a series of suppositions and intuitions leading to the accusation of a terrible crime, all in the absence of clear evidence. The easiest type of film to make would be one in which it was all a big misunderstanding, and the lesson is not to jump to rash conclusions. But in this case, the suppositions turn out to be right, raising the far more complex case of how to morally conduct oneself when one lacks clear information and the consequences of being wrong are terrible. No jury could have convicted Hoffman's character on such flimsy evidence, but Streep's character lacked the luxury of legal certainty in moving to protect a child.

The final confrontation between Hoffman and Streep is a powerful moment, in which Streep's character, a woman who has devoted her life to unquestioning service of the church, declares her loyalty to a higher moral sense she in effect declares that she will do what she believes is right, to protect a child, regardless of how the church judges her and indeed regardless of how God judges her. She doesn't put it as directly as this in the film, but more artfully, and the effect is more moving than I am relaying here.

In the final scene, when Streep's character expresses deep doubt while clutching her cross, she doesn't say what she doubts: Hoffman's guilt? Her own actions? The actions of a church that basically just kicked him a level upstairs, free to prey? Her own fundamental religious faith? Whichever she means, she has plenty to doubt at that moment her certainty of her moral rectitude has given way to a dumbfounding confusion in which her church and faith have failed to uphold the most fundamental principles of a moral society.

It's so easy to imagine a lesser film being made from this material how easy it would have been to craft a ham-fisted, preachy film, or one in which all religious people are portrayed as hypocrites, or a broadside attack on Catholicism, or any of a number of other lousy ideas. Instead, Doubt is a riveting, emotionally buffeting, engrossing, moving film of great moral complexity and subtlety.

Buy Doubt (2008) Now

See this movie only if you enjoy a film where the acting and writing is way above average, and only if you are in the mood for a film that will induce thought. This is not a movie to settle down with if you just want to be entertained for the evening. It's basically a quiet character study about conflicting people (although it does get fairly tense and emotional at times).

I grew up in the 1970's and went to Catholic school; it was a decade after this film's time period but not much had changed, believe me. I was used to all the trappings of the church and of nuns and priests. I was not an altar boy but I was exposed to the traditions and experiences that are seen in this film. I would imagine that someone who is not familiar with these things at all might find some aspects of this movie to be almost foreign in certain ways. But a viewer need not be familiar with Catholicism (or even with the Bronx in 1964) to appreciate this movie.

The four principles give outstanding performances, particularly Meryl Streep and Viola Davis (Davis has just one major scene, and she is excellent in it). Streep owns the movie as the conflicted and multifaceted Sister Aloysius; this is probably the most relentless and stubborn woman in cinema since Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in 1975 (played by Oscar-winner Louise Fletcher). I was fascinated with this character, and torn over how I felt about her. She can be considered a heroine and also a villain at the same time. It's hard to explain. She can be strict, unfair, caring, funny, impatient, and cold. And it's no surprise that this would be another (her sixteenth) Oscar nomination for Meryl Streep. She never stops creating authentic characters. In "Doubt", her mannerisms, body language, accent, and expressions were all spot-on.

The film is sometimes ambiguous, particularly the final scene. Some things are left to the audience to wrestle with and to interpret. I enjoyed that the story becomes much more than a mystery, that it becomes more about a person's choices and judgments and decisions. Kudos to playwright and director John Patrick Shanley for making this powerful film.

Read Best Reviews of Doubt (2008) Here

In my opinion, this is one of the best films made in recent years. And, even though it is set in the Roman Catholic church, it is not really "about" the Roman Catholic church. This was simply a setting that allowed the writer/director to explore themes that we all deal with when trying to do the right thing in life. How do we know what we think we know? What constitutes guilt? What if your intuitions about people are often correct, even though you don't always know how you know? And what if you're wrong about someone? How do you even know? While this film is about doubt, it is just as much about the question of certainty. What makes us sure that we are doing the right thing? How do we determine these things? I have watched this film with several different people, and it's amazing how positive everyone is that they know what has happened in the film, even though they have different ideas about what has actually happened. It reveals a lot about individuals and how they deal with presuppositions and circumstantial evidence.

Then, on top of these amazingly well orchestrated themes, this film is beautiful to look at. The cinematography is excellent. The acting is superb. The costumes are spot on. The environments are perfect.

And there is effective use of metaphor in the film, particularly with imagery itself: the wind playing a key role, along with images of the fall (literally, the season, figuratively, the biblical concept). Pay attention to when the wind blows, etc. And what is moved by the literal wind, as other things are moved by the winds of doubt and fear, etc.

Anyway. Just amazing in every way. While it was well received, this film has nowhere near the recognition it deserves.

Want Doubt (2008) Discount?

Having seen the film before reading Amazon.com's summary, I respectfully suggest that Kathleen C. Fennessy go back and watch this movie again.

It's certainly true that Sister Aloysius doesn't like this priest and his progressive ways, but she isn't setting out to destroy him because of that. She is setting out to stop an abusive priest taking advantage of an isolated, lonely boy. How do we know that? The film tells us so in an earlier scene involving another student. We see that student walking away from the school and wiping his nose with a handkerchief. He stops across the street, looks back at the school building, laughs and lights a cigarette. Just after, we see an exchange between Sister Aloysius and Sister James, wherein the young and innocent Sister James (who by the way did not go to Sister Aloysius with this matter because Father Flynn was being attentive to Donald, but because Donald had returned from a visit with Father Flynn upset, disoriented and with alcohol on his breath) just cannot believe Sister Aloysius' outrageous allegation that the student she had just sent home with the bloodly nose probably induced the nosebleed purposely just to get out of school early. Yet we watched that student as he left school and we know that what Sister Aloysius said about him isn't outrageous. It's true. So later, when Sister James does not want to believe Sister Aloysius' conclusions about the priest, we know they are true. And the doubts expressed by Sister Aloysius at the end of the film are not about the priest. They are about a church she had invested her life in, that has looked the other way when children were in peril, and put a predator in yet another place where he could go after more children.

Just had to add my two cents here, as I think Ms. Fennessy's summary is completely off-target.

As for the film itself, this is an actor's showcase that contains three riveting sequences, two between the school principal and the priest, and one between the principal and the mother of the young victim. Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman are arresting, as is Viola Davis, the boy's mother. The story itself is rich with an uncliched take on a difficult, much analyzed and discussed problem. The film is an intense character study and should not be missed.

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