Copyright 2008, Miramax Films Doubt is a play that should probably not be a movie, which is unfortunate because, as is evidenced above, this is not advice well taken. Don't get me wrong: the movie has four truly accomplished actors working, for the most part, at the top of their game. But performance do not a good movie make.
It's ironic that the director of the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winner, John Patrick Shanley, has surprisingly little faith in the source material, since he is also the film's screenwriter and the man who wrote the play. And yet, he relies on far too many heavyhanded symbolic flourishes, from imaginary feathers flying in the wind to purposely odd camera angles to lightbulbs popping out in the office where most of the film's action takes place.
Shanley's directorial choices are even stranger when considering that his top-name technical crew are among the best in the business; when you have Roger Deakins as your cinematographer and Dylan Tichenor as your editor, why should there be any problems with the technical aspect?
Despite all this, the acting in the film is mostly top-notch. I say "mostly" with regards to Meryl Streep, who certainly does much better here than her other 2008 film, the execrable "Mamma Mia!" Streep, however, continues to perpetuate the idea here that she searches for a way to integrate her gift of accents in just about every role. Not that her Sister Aloysius, a nun and Catholic school principal suspicious that her parish's priest is involved in a relationship with the only African American boy in school, shouldn't have an accent (the film is set in the Bronx), but Streep's well-known proclivity for voices fails here, as she sometimes sounds like she's from Noo Yawk and sometimes like she's just Meryl Streep.
The other three main performances, from Philip Seymour Hoffman as the potentially pedophilic priest, Amy Adams as an extremely innocent nun and schoolteacher who brings the situation to Sister Aloysius' attention, and Viola Davis as the African American boy's mother, are affecting and filled with genuine emotion. It's Streep who always feels a little fake here, always a bit uncomfortable in the habit she wears throughout.
The real problem, whatever there may be, lies with Shanley, who liberally adds some scenes in the school, mostly involving the kids in Sister James' (Adams) class. On stage, Doubt only has the four characters played by Streep, Hoffman, Adams, and Davis, and even fewer scenes outside Sister Aloysius' office. Why, then, does Shanley show us three different boys in Sister James' class, one who appears to be a bad seed but one who finds Father Flynn (Hoffman) to be creepy; one who's relatively nice despite shouting at his teacher; and Donald, the African American boy who sees Father Flynn as a father figure?
There's much too much buried under the surface of these scenes, something that adds to the intricacies of the adult characters, and something that takes away from whatever mystique there may be in Father Flynn's seemingly disturbing meeting with Donald in the rectory. I imagine Shanley knows what's going on here, but he should have let the actors in on the secret.
Speaking of secrets, a little has been made online about Philip Seymour Hoffman's reaction to what appears to be the most common question asked of him by entertainment press: did Shanley tell Hoffman before filming if his Father Flynn was guilty of an illegal relationship with Donald? What is most fascinating is exactly how definitely we know the answer to, if not that question, the general question that Father Flynn is a guilty man, a man who should not be near children. Is there really a mystery here, when the movie answers it so completely?
It's this knowledge that makes the final scenes a bit frustrating; what we are meant to glean from the scenes, the only ones where Streep is able to channel humane emotion, is that Sister Aloysius isn't just that horrible stereotypical nun who rapped our knuckles with her ruler. While Streep sells the emotion perfectly, the dialogue behind her tears falls flat.
With the Oscars around the bend, the acting in Doubt, especially that of Ms. Davis, whose one scene in the film is powerful and compelling enough to get her a nomination, deserves mention. The film itself, while posing many challenging questions (and for that, high praise is indeed warranted), will not resonate as well as its original production still does, with only a bare stage and four people whose words may save or damn them.
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