Doubt Review

It’s not too often you get to see two of the best actors on the planet square off, but that’s exactly what you’ll get if you go check out “Doubt.”

(And if you go the AMC theatre in Brandon, Florida, you’ll also get the impression that only little old ladies are shelling out money to see “Doubt” in theatres. Honestly, my girlfriend Erica and I were the only two people in the crowd who were under the age of 60 — I’m not even exaggerating.)

“Doubt” is based on the 2005 Pulitzer and Tony-winning play by John Patrick Shanley, who also wrote the script for and directed the film adaptation (we’ll get into why that’s not such a great thing a little later).

The story centers on Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Academy Award winner Meryl Streep), the severe, old-fashioned principal at a parochial school in New York in 1964, who squares off against the progressive, popular, charismatic Father Flynn (Academy Award Winner Philip Seymour Hoffman) after the naive Sister James (Academy Award nominee Amy Adams) accuses Flynn of an unspeakable act toward a student (Joseph Foster). (Ok, maybe if you’ve watched the news the last 10 years, the act isn’t such a shocker.)

I never saw the play on stage, but since Shanley adapted his own script, I imagine the film adaptation remains mostly unchanged (saved for the addition of a few secondary characters). As such, “Doubt” doesn’t just explore issues of faith and, well, doubt, but it also deals touches on discrimination based on race and sexuality, male/female hierarchy, and progressiveness versus the status quo.

In fact, the only problem with Shanley adapting his own play is that he decided to take on the role of director as well. His only previous directing credit was “Joe Versus the Volcano” almost 20 years ago, and his inexperience shows at times. Shanley just doesn’t bring anything to the table as a director (though cinematographer Roger Deakins does a fine job) making some of the scenes appear stage-y. Not only that, Shanley feels the need to hit the audience over the head with repeated and overt symbols like a burnt out light bulb, a windstorm and thunder crashing during a key scene.

It’s too bad because, really, all he had to do was get out of his actors’ way.

Streep is great (as usual) as Sister Aloysius, easily projecting the authority needed to convey the feared principal. There are also enough moments in Shanley’s screenplay and in Streep’s performance to suggest Aloysius isn’t a complete monster and is mostly completely ill-equipped to handle the changing times in her church and in the rest of the world. If I have one minor gripe about Streep’s performance is that she tended to veer too close to “over-the-top” territory and I was very conscious of the fact that she capital A “Acting” a few times.

Hoffman is even better as Flynn. His deliberate facial expressions and mannerisms give almost nothing away about Father Flynn’s innocence or guilt, but still manage to convey a multitude of thoughts and emotions. I think I actually liked his first, more controlled face off with Aloysius more than his louder blow up later in the film.

Amy Adams is also solid as the pure, impressionable Sister James. The character, by definition, is sort of the blank slate and moldable sounding board for Flynn and, especially, Aloysius, so it’d be very easy for Sister James to come off as weak or easily dupable. Still, Adams infuses her performance with enough heart and humor to make us care for her. (There are actually quite a few funny moments in this movie, mostly from Aloysius and James’ interactions.)

However, there are no laughs when Viola Davis shows up for her brief and devastating turn as the young boy’s mother. Of course, you’ve heard about how great Davis’ one big scene is (strong enough to earn her a bunch of nominations, including an almost-certain Oscar nod), but it’ll still feel like a punch in the gut. Without giving too much away, I’ll just say that it’s probably the first time in 20 or 30 years that an actress has blown Meryl Streep off the screen.

In that uninterrupted scene with Streep and Davis, Shanley does display the good instinct to simply film the two actresses in an extended, uninterrupted. Despite the fact that I slammed him a few paragraphs back, I like that Shanley allows several of his scenes to be carried by his actors and unfold at a leisurely pace.

“Doubt” is an interesting story that will probably promote discussion afterwards, and features phenomenal acting. Then again, that’s probably almost exactly what people said about the play, so I still can’t help the film adaptation was somewhat of a missed opportunity to take it to the next level.

Doubt...B