"Doubt"

Now I know a lot of people have been chortling over the sight of Meryl Streep in her nun's wimple and granny's granny's spectacles in the publicity shots from and trailer for Doubt. But let me assure you,in the film itself, just a couple of minutes with her character, Sister Aloysius Beauvier, will wipe that smirk or whatever it is right off of your face.

Granted, as a Catholic boy who grew up in a milieu similar to the film's, and at around the same time (but who was, I suppose thankfully, spared the particular rigors of a Catholic school education), I may be more susceptible than most to the specific menace Streep exudes. But I don't think so. This ain't no Sister Mary Elephant we're talking about here—Streep's Aloysius is the real deal, the kind of dogmatically strict disciplinarian whose hovering presence, even from a few feet behind, is sufficient to set any sentient schoolchild's spine straight and stiff. Aloysius is the principal of the St. Nicholas elementary school in the Bronx in early 1964. The '60s have just barely started to swing yet, but she knows that the world—that is, her world—is going to hell in a handbasket, what with requests to use secular songs in the Christmas pageant, transistor radios, ballpoints—yes, ballpoints, they make you press down and are hence ruining penmanship, and some of the newfangled ideas of young-ish parish priest and teacher Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman). 

The picture opens with Flynn sermonizing on the value of doubt. Such talk is absolutely inimical to Sister Aloysius, so you could say that a bug is already firmly planted in her ass when younger Sister James (Amy Adams), a slightly simpering naif, approaches Aloysius with "concerns" about Father Flynn's relationship with the school's sole African-American student, Donald Miller (Joseph Foster II). Aloysius then declares, shall we say, holy war on Flynn, and the lion's share of the film is split between her very dicey machinations and a fierce philosophical debate conducted (sometimes obliquely) between the three main characters on certainty and, of course, doubt. 

John Patrick Shanley adapted the script from his own highly acclaimed play, and directed. Shanley is roundly lauded as a remarkably engaging writer, and he's also a terrifically thrifty one—not a word or gesture is wasted here. It's to his everlasting credit that, despite being a piece about Very Major Themes, the film never plods or feels overbearing. It is in fact a very effective dramatic entertainment, and quite ingeniously constructed. While there's never really a point in the story where you absolutely don't know who to believe, there are sufficient curveballs—one delivered quite devastatingly by Viola Davis as young Donald's mother—to throw you a little off-balance until the picture's surprising but entirely apt coda. 

The acting here, as you might have inferred from the names of the cast, is no problem. It's rather refreshing to see Hoffman playing what will be for most a conventionally sympathetic character. I think it's the first time since, oh, hell, his Lester Bangs in Almost Famous? There's gotta be something else, but that's what's sticking in my mind at the moment. Adams really gets the complexities underlying her seemingly simple character—'cause when you think about it, being both a young woman and a nun is pretty, well, complex. Davis, in a very short time, evokes a world of hurt and trouble. And Streep takes what could have been a caricature—not that the writing encourages caricature, but the archetype the character's representing certainly does—and imbues it with all kinds of vitality, from her not-nearly-submerged New Yawk accent to the animatedly malicious pleasure she takes in, say, whiling away office time listening to that transistor radio she's confiscated from a student. 

I should say this was not a picture I was particularly excited about seeing. Especially given the last Much-Bruited-Miramax-Sponsored-Film-Adaptation-Of-A-Broadway-Hit-Drama, the limp noodle Proof. No, Doubt beats that dog in a leisurely walk. But it's better than that, even. 

As the credits went up, I had (what I took for) an amusing thought—that the whole piece was actually a parable on the War in Iraq. This is not an idea that I particularly want to pursue, as I don't actually believe it, but I'll bet money that at least one know-something-ish critic (likely of the Social Concern Troll variety) will pick up that ball and try to run with it. I'll keep you posted. Or you can keep me posted. 

UPDATE: I clearly need to research these things a little more thoroughly—having not given too much of a look at what was written about the theatrical version of Doubt, I didn't realize that the Iraq analogy had already been brought up. Shanley himself did not quite swat it away in an EW interview:

Some have suggested that Doubt is a criticism of the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq and its unconfirmed belief in weapons of mass destruction. 
On some level, there's a political point. But most political plays are about reconfirming your politics to you — which just bores me into insensibility — as opposed to putting it back on you. The theme should arise like smoke off a play. It shouldn't be stated, or if it is, it should go by like just another line.

This means, among other things, that'll I'll be compelled to give a pass to the film critics who bring it up. 

Comments

[derek]

I'd be interested to hear what you think of "Joe the Volcano" and "Moonstruck."

[Glenn Kenny]

I very much like "Moonstruck," not least because I live around where it was shot. It's nothing groundbreaking cinematically, but the Shanley factor and the acting are big pluses. As for "Joe," well, it's got all the right influences (the recurring Meg Ryan is a nod to Deborah Kerr in "The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp") and it's a lot ballsier than any other Hanks/Ryan vehicle...but it kind of overreaches, I think.

[bill]

I'm pretty sure that I love "Joe vs. the Volcano", but I haven't seen it in forever. Still, I have very fond memories.

And I'm very excited about "Doubt". It sounds fascinating, and I can't wait to see Hoffman tackle this. Like everyone else, I think he's about as good as it gets, and while I've loved his showier performances in recent years, I still think one his best roles was Phil Parma in "Magnolia". Who else thinks he's one of the most memorable things about that movie?

[ester]

This year has brought us so many disappointments -- Sex and the City, Burn After Reading, and, by some measures, Synecdoche, New York -- that I'm almost scared to see Doubt. But if the film is as good as you say, something in 2008 will finally live up to expectations. And it'll be kinda ironic that such a grim movie should be such a bright spot.

[bill]

I loved, LOVED "Burn After Reading". I wasn't disappointed in that one at all.

[Zack Handlen]

Hoffman was sympathetic in "Charlie Wilson's War"--which I site not so much for pedantry's sake (as your basic point, that he nearly always plays, ahem, uncomfortable people, is dead on the money), but just to mention one of the few things about that movie I unreservedly admired.

Joe Vs. the Volcano is one of my favorites. I'm not even sure I could view it critically at this point; like, say, Gremlins, Ghostbusters, or Raiders of the Lost Ark, it just is what it is.

[lazarus]

Doubt is going to have to be pretty damned great to top Michael Dinner's Heaven Help Us in the Catholic school film department.

[Dan]

I'll be curious to see this, but I'm not sure I'll be seeking it out. It just seems rather...dour, which I suppose is kind of the point since it's about faith and kid-touching and other stuff you can't really make light comedy about.

[bill]

Maybe YOU couldn't...

[Ed Gonzalez (Former Catholic School Boy)]

"As the credits went up, I had (what I took for) an amusing thought—that the whole piece was actually a parable on the War in Iraq."

I joked after the screening that the war depicted in the film was between Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Like you, I don't want to pursue that idea. Stupid movie: Spent the whole time dodging its metaphors (ballpoint pens, wind, lightbulbs, etc.) and tilting my head at the inexplicably canted camera angles.

[Manuel F.]

Joe the Volcano is interesting for about twenty minutes and then it turns into a Garry Marshall movie. I don't understand its appeal and I don't understand why people keep singing it's praises 18 years later. It's a mediocre movie. I don't get it.

[Tesse]

The title of the original play was "Doubt: A Parable." As I understood it, the play is very specifically meant to be a parallel to the war in Iraq. You can most definitely pursue that line of thought.

Terrific review!

[B.W.]

Manuel, I think a lot of the appeal of Joe/Volcano has to do with its floptastic reputation upon its release in 1990. It was a financial and critical disaster so for years, like Elaine May's Ishtar, it was underrated and unfairly dismissed. Now, 18 years later, the film is overrated. Things happen that way, in cycles, and people overcorrect for previous appraisals. I do think it's a pretty good movie though. Any film that makes Meg Ryan seem charming instead of annoying is a winner in my book.

[Alan]

I thought Matt Cale (RR) had some interesting words on the film:

"As an allegory, it is a necessary antidote to our own cocksure era, but just as suitable for any civilization across time. Despite its trappings, such themes will never suffer the spoilage of a dated curiosity. The movie, however, is an abomination; a knife to the back of everything the play spoke for and alluded to. In order to conform to the demands of cinema and admittedly mainstream tastes, a wrongheaded “fleshing out” occurred that stripped away mystery, discussion, and yes, doubt itself. The play, wisely, never showed any of the school children. What’s more, we never saw so much as an eyelid of young Donald Muller, the “victim” in question. The play understood that the moment we see the faces of youth, our emotions take over and we side with their cause."

[Glenn Kenny]

Yeah, that's "interesting," all right.

[B.W.]

Hoffman was also sympathetic in THE SAVAGES. Has history already forgotten that film? I really liked it.

[Glenn Kenny]

I liked "The Savages" too, B.W. And I think that Hoffman's character in it is sympathetic in various degrees. When I describe his character in "Doubt" as "conventionally sympathetic," I mean as in pretty consistently likeable, which his "Savages" character certainly wasn't.

[Erin Donovan]

Oh man, the trailer for this film looks so bad I wrote it off. Now I feel myself getting reeled in.

Damn you, Kenny!