Our Review
John Patrick Shanley brings his acclaimed play, "Doubt", to the big screen, and makes a successful transition thanks, largely, to the outstanding performances of Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams.
The film is set in The Bronx, in New York City during the tumultuous mid-60s following the assassination of President John F Kennedy.
The winds of political change have also swept through the Catholic Church and the school of St Nicholas, which, having just accepted its first black student, Donald Miller, is itself experiencing major reform.
The warm and charismatic priest, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is attempting to bring a sense of modernity and intimacy to the Church, by breaking down the traditional formality that usually stands between parishioner and priest, and student and teacher.
But he's consistently being blocked by the uncompromising and brusque Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), adamant in her defence of the old ways and, with nothing but "moral certainty", determined to bring Father Flynn down.
Inspired by today's talking head political pundits who shout their hard-and-fast opinions on cable news programs, Shanley wrote his original play as a way of challenging the idea of absolute truths and good versus evil.
Doubt need not be shunned; instead it should be embraced as a dynamic force for change that brings both instability and new life to long-standing establishments.
But embraced or not, doubt is an intrinsic part of our reality — one that is often grey in colour, rather than black and white, and always in flux.
And it's this concept that Shanley carefully infuses in every thoughtfully placed element of the story.
As an audience, we are unsure of Father Flynn's innocence when Sister James (Amy Adams), herself desperately unsure, accuses the priest of having an inappropriately close relationship with Donald.
We are unsure of how we should feel towards Sister Aloysius, who at first seems dragonish and severe, until we understand that much of her forceful personality comes out of her commitment to the nuns and students, and who shows flashes of humour and kindness.
And is her crusade against Father Flynn a search for the truth and a battle to protect a student? Or is she blinded by her quest to overpower Father Flynn, who seeks to wrest the school from her control and take it into a new world?
New aspects to Donald's story, as revealed by Donald's mother, also provide added twists and turns to a did-he-or-didn't-he story that is crowded with doubt, as much as it is a reflection on the very nature of doubt.
Such a deftly written script required fine actors who could handle the inherent subtleties. And there was no disappointment from acting heavyweights Streep and Hoffman, who together have fantastic screen chemistry.
Adams, too, holds her own as the innocent, but quietly powerful Sister James, and Viola Davis has a short but memorable appearance as Donald's mother.
