Doubt

Doubt is a movie that succeeds despite a number of problems. Strong performances, smart pacing and strong tone help move the film past it's initial shortcomings and delivers a smart, taught drama.

Doubt starts with an 0-2 count. The film, of course, is based on a play by John Patrick Shanley, and it does not seem that there was a lot of work done to smooth out the emotions for the larger presentation. Also, the subject matter seems slightly dated; This was a movie that feels like it should have been made in 2003. It must have been extremely timely as a play, but it's right up against it's expiration date in late 2008.

Second, the characters are something out of every Catholic memoir. The twist, though, is that the easy-going priest, tough-as-nails nun, and idealistic new apprentice (here, Amy Adam's Sister James) are usually played for laughs. That was a winning formula for pictures like Heaven Help Us. Shanley plays it for drama.

Despite all these initial dings, Doubt is an engrossing film. Shanley welcomes us into a 1964 Catholic School. The turmoil of in the country is secondary to the turmoil within the Catholic Church itself. This is the time of Vatican II, and the reforms and liberalization of that council are brought alive by Father Brendan Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a young priest who views the stern, scolding manner of the church as hopelessly outdated. Father Flynn likes to talk with the boys of the school, play basketball, and try to present an authority figure who can also be viewed as a friend.

Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep) will have none of that; She is the school's principal, and runs the place with an iron Habit. Discipline comes fast and severe in the school. Talking in class is worthy of a trip to her office. She advises the nuns to hang glossy framed pictures of the pope to act as mirrors. That gives the nun the ability to see the students misbehave while writing on the board.

Just how opposed is Sister Aloysius to any type of reform? She hangs pictures of Pope Pius XII, not the then-current Pope Paul VI or predecessor Pope John XXIII, both of whom presided over Vatican II. It's a subtle jab that most non-Catholics (and most Catholics, really) would miss, but it speaks volumes to just the kind of person we're dealing with with Sister Aloysius. That kind of subtlety permeates the script: Witness Father Flynn entering Sister's office and taking her chair behind the desk; a comment on the pervasive sexism of the time. The tables turn as the scene progresses and the sister's initial obsequience is replaced with moral outrage, and she dominates the room. Shanley's gift is in these details, even if the actors on screen slowly eat him alive as a director.

The national flux is also present at the school. Kennedy is dead and the civil rights movement is in full gear. Young Donald Miller (Joseph Foster) is the school's first and only black student. Everyone at the school tries to integrate Donald with the rest of the class, in their own ways. But Donald presents challenges beyond the race issues. There is polite talk about the biy's nature. That leads to some friction, and none of it serves Donald well. Father Flynn takes an intense interest in Donald.

Given this context, it's easy to see that Sister Aloysius does not like the new Priest at her parish. A simple gesture caught in the first frames of the film, combined with a crying Donald sent back to class after a meeting with Father Flynn, is all the evidence she needs to try and have him removed. An accusation is made, and Flynn and Beauvier spend the next hour battling over its implications. Sister James, new to the school, and new to being a nun, tries to broker a peace between her two mentors, and ultimately becomes a pawn in their game.

Doubt winds itself tighter and tighter as the story develops, leading to explosive outbursts as accusations and threats come to a head. Hoffman delivers a fine performance, presenting a priest struggling hard to loosen the reins of the church on its members. Flynn very well may have secrets, however, and Hoffman is careful to show a little deviousness in the corner of the priest's eye.

Streep meanwhile, is given a tighter box in which to work. What results is a new formula of The Devil Wears Prada's Miranda Priestly: Take out the urbanism, add in another cup of reserve and sneering condescension, and what results is a character tougher and more resolute than her remarkable work in that earlier film. It's hard to tell whether it's Streep playing too large or the character written that way. She does have one shining moment, when speaking with Donald's mother (Viola Davis in a small but powerful performance), where a flicker of humanity tries to peek out from the opressive nun-ness of the Sister.

There's too much Actor with a capital A on the screen in two critical passes. The two major clashes between Hoffman and Streep both descend into screaming matches, which is fine, and was warranted by the script, but it left no room for the two master performers to modulate their emotion, or create any hint of, well, doubt within themselves. Hoffman comes off better in the exchange, purely because his character has more flexibility within himself. Amy Adams's optimism and befuddlement at all things unpleasant whips a little air into the stifling debate and rancor Hoffman and Streep conjure up. Shanley would have done well to pull these two titans back just a little, to provide a little more range, and an opportunity to defend the odd twist at the end of the picture.

Still, Doubt does an admirable job overcoming it's original sins to deliver a taught and suspenseful movie. Shanley's script may still read as a play, but it reads as a good one, and the complexities leech themselves out around the block-like characterization. And if inflexibility and it's degradation of the soul is a central theme here, the twist in the last few frames of the movie undercut that message. No spoilers here, but the 180-degree change is not justified by previous events. It doesn't quite ruin the movie, but it's jarring to see.

That said, Doubt is well-worth an in-theater experience.