Doubt: Movie, DVD, Blu-ray disc Review (2009)

Written and directed by John Patrick Shanley, 104 minutes, PG-13.

John Patrick Shanley's “Doubt,” a church melodrama of the highest order, has so much going for it, it’s too bad it’s ultimately as hollow as it is. But that’s the case and here’s the thing--those who are interested in watching the tug of war between a priest and a nun who hate each other with a white-hot passion should see it, anyway.

Turns out there’s enough to recommend.

The film stars two of our best working actors--Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman--as well as Amy Adams, who grounds the movie in ways that led to an Academy Award nomination. Joining her, Streep and Hoffman in receiving that honor is Viola Davis, who gives the movie a necessary shot of substance amid the sideshow that is Streep’s cliched but marvelously overheated performance.

Set in the Bronx in 1964, the film follows Streep as Sister Aloysius, the pinched principal of the St. Nicholas School who has some rather antiquated beliefs about how to lead her charges. Vicious Aloysius is all about inciting fear--she’ll literally smack you down if she thinks you’re out of line--which is in direct contrast to how the more liberal and kind Father Flynn (Hoffman) chooses to lead his life.

The film’s first third is a dark satire on Catholicism. Stereotypes abound, with nuggets of truth tucked into every one of them.

For instance, when the nuns gather for dinner, they’re viewed as automatons cocooned in an uncomfortable sheath of silence. Sister Aloysius is the exception. She sits at the head of the table and commands it with her snapping eyes, which flit from this nun to that nun, judging, always judging, until she chooses her target and asks leading questions that allow her to deepen her own superiority. Given the way Streep plays her, plenty will be reminded of her performance in “The Devil Wears Prada.” Here, she obviously came to play “The Devil Wears a Habit.” We’re often better for it.

In comparison, when the priests dine, they’re viewed as a loose bunch of heavy-smoking drinkers bellowing over bawdy jokes. They’re men who happen to be priests. Their private behavior is one of the movie’s few insights, with the film growing darker as Father Flynn’s own private behavior is called into question.

Apparently, timid Sister James (Adams) saw something that has left her to question Father Flynn’s growing relationship with an altar boy named Donald Stewart (Joseph Foster), who happens to be St. Nicholas’ first African-American student, and thus, during this era, its most vulnerable. Did Father Flynn do something inappropriate with Donald when he called him to the rectory? If he didn’t, which he claims he didn’t when Sister James confronts him, then why did she smell alcohol on the boy’s breath?

Doubt fuels the situation, with Sister Aloysius eagerly wanting to take Father Flynn to the mat when Sister James spills the goods. What builds between Flynn and Aloysius is the potential for one massive showdown, which the movie comes close to providing, but which it fails to deliver with any real guts or substance when it counts. It’s discouraging. The whole moment the movie builds to just evaporates onscreen.

The good news? It’s still fun to watch Streep bristle into a boiling burn--she’s been acting long enough to have her bag of tricks, and she unleashes every one of them here. It’s also a treat to watch her spar with Hoffman, even if they don’t fully come through when they must (the script lets them down).

As for Adams, she’s offered her meat and potatoes in this movie (just as her contemporary, Anne Hathaway, is in “Rachel Getting Married”), and she eats them up with a trembling relish. Finally, as for Donald’s mother, Viola Davis’ brief appearance is so powerful, it mirrors Ruby Dee’s Academy Award-nominated performance in “American Gangster.” On the basis of one scene alone, which she shares opposite Streep, she comes very close to stealing the show.

Grade: B

Features:

Doubt: From Stage To Screen
Scoring Doubt
The Cast Of Doubt
The Sisters Of Charity
Feature Commentary With Writer/Director John Patrick Shanley

View the trailer for "Doubt" here"