Doubt

This new Blu-ray release appears to be a reissue from 15 years ago. We’re almost surprised to see the Miramax label on a new product, even if it’s distributed by Paramount. The 2008 movie Doubt is a noted success from John Patrick Shanley, the accomplished playwright and filmmaker whose screenplays grace  Five Corners and  Moonstruck.  Doubt is the only feature directed by Shanley that was well-received when new. Although it has since been redeemed by appreciative fans, his eccentric comedy  Joe Versus the Volcano suffered almost unanimous critical dismissal when new. His other directed picture, 2020’s Wild Mountain Thyme with Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan, was all but destroyed by critics, whereas we thought it old-fashioned but charming. It’s currently OOP on disc.

Doubt garnered the respect denied the other two Shanley-directed pictures, performing decently at the box office and earning 5 Oscar nominations. Meryl Streep was the most-nominated actress working, and both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Viola Davis were given major career boosts. We’re even more impressed by the intensity of John Patrick Shanley’s writing and direction.

Father Flynn: “Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty. When you are lost, you are not alone.” 

We couldn’t recall the last time that a film held our attention with scenes of a priest delivering a church sermon.   But we always pay attention to dramas that offer insights about human relationships … even if we favor the ones that reinforce our own values.

Adapted from John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Doubt carries a powerful emotional kick. This story plays out within the walls of St. Nicholas, an aged Catholic grade school run by The Sisters of Charity, and administered by the stern principal, Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep). Sister Aloysius keeps a close watch on the nuns under her watch, and does not suffer fools lightly. She disapproves of the sermons of the easygoing Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Unlike Flynn, Sister Aloysius does not support the new openness of the Church in the 1960s. She doesn’t like his friendly, informal relationships with the students.

Trouble begins when the history teacher Sister James (Amy Adams) picks up hints of an inappropriate relationship between Father Flynn and St. Nicholas’s only black student, young Donald Miller (Joseph Foster). Sister Aloysius takes Father Flynn’s reluctance to discuss the matter as proof of guilt, and instructs him to resign. What follows is a battle of wills and a clash of philosophies. Sister Aloysius insists that Flynn tell her all, yet has already decided that he’s guilty. Flynn’s response is to deny that she has any moral or doctrinal right to challenge him. Flynn might be taking an ethical stand, but he could also just be shielding himself. Aloysius bores in mercilessly, certain of her mission even when she deceives and lies in her effort to force Flynn to confess.

Doubt is an incisive drama about important issues, and too responsible to offer an easy solution to its ethical tangle. A few reviews dismissed it as obvious, or compared it unfavorably with the stage presentation. But powerful acting and sharp characterizations made Doubt one of the best movie experiences of its year.

The characterizations are memorably sharp and distinct. The management methods employed by Sister Aloysius’s might cause her to be targeted by an ethics review. She readily admits that she runs St. Nicholas through fear. She whacks inattentive students with the back of her hand and terrorizes them with her steely gaze. The outwardly meek Sister James may lack inexperience, but her idealism gives her an inner strength that even Sister Aloysius admires.

The truth about Father Flynn remains an open question. We can’t be sure if the priest has something to hide, or if he chooses his uncooperative stance out of principle. When Flynn demands that Sister Aloysius drop her investigation, Doubt spins into a gray moral area where faith, trust and intuition clash. Sister Aloysius is undeterred by the absence of hard evidence — she’s convinced of Flynn’s culpability and won’t believe anything he says short of a confession. Is there any real substance to her charges, or have tempers heated up over what may be nothing at all:

Father Flynn: “Where is your compassion?”Sister Aloysius: “Nowhere you can get at it!” 

Viola Davis’s Mrs. Miller is present for only one scene and part of another, yet is so effective that she joined the other main actors in receiving Oscar nominations. Mrs. Miller is a working mother with few resources, who only wants her son to have a chance to get ahead in the world. Her response to Sister Aloysius’s suspicions may seem a disturbing compromise to some, but it’s still the act of a mother who chooses her son’s overall welfare over an unyielding moral code.

Shanley’s characters invite scrutiny, to say the least. We find ourselves searching their faces for the truth behind their words. Sister James despairs of her role in the controversy, and worries that she no longer sleeps nights. Sister Aloysius believes in enforcing the rules no matter who might be hurt. But she also believes she can cheat those rules in a crisis. She says that to do Good, one must sometimes step away from God — and adds that there is a personal price to be paid.

John Patrick Shanley offers little vignettes with the students of St. Nicholas school, adorable, impressionable kids who are sometimes less than cherubic. Father Flynn befriends the children and encourages their emotions, while Sister Aloysius only seems to see the devil in them. By contrast, Sister James is a potential pushover. She can’t believe that a delinquent boy would give himself a nosebleed as an excuse to cut class.

Director Shanley punctuates his film with symbolic visual effects. A light in Sister Aloysius’s office keeps blowing out during tense meetings, the kind of phenomena that in an earlier age might be associated with sorcery. She greets a visitor while holding a pole used to change light bulbs, momentarily giving her the appearance of a devil with a trident.

Some critics objected to Shanley’s use of such symbolic (theatrical?) gestures. The most arresting visual harmonizes with the movie’s main theme, illustrating the point of Father Flynn sermon. His pointed parable on the topic of gossip ends with a vision, a blizzard of pillow feathers. Too obvious?  The shower of feathers doesn’t just represent gossip — it’s an excellent visualization of the moral storm raised by the conflict between accuser and accused.