FILM REVIEW: Doubt
© A.J. Malouin 2009
(Ratings: 2 by The Film Snob and 3 by Caryl.)
(See our side-bar page “How Caryl & Al and The Film Snob Rate Movies”)
(2008/USA. Directed by John Patrick Shanley.)
A triumvirate of amazing acting performances make this film one not to be missed.
Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams are all three superb. They play a parish priest and two nuns at odds over authority and morality inside a Catholic grade school in the Bronx during the 1960s.
Don’t expect car chases or gunfire here. The whole piece is slow-moving for a movie. This is what you’d expect of a screenplay which Caryl says was the adaptation of a stage play.
The best set pieces take place during conversations with various combinations of the three star actors.
But the film *really* catches fire during the conversation between the mother of student Sam Miller and the school Principal played by Meryl Streep.
Streep’s character has accused the Pastor of improper advances toward Sam Miller, the only black kid in a school full of Irish and Italian kids.
In a tear-stained and highly moving conversation, Miller’s mother says that improper advances by a parish priest are not the worst thing that could happen to her son.
Streep is terrifying effective as Sister Aloysius Beauvier, a hard-hearted nun who strikes terror into all the school’s students, and some of its staff, as well.
As Father Brendan Flynn, Pastor of the church and school, Philip Seymour Hoffman more than holds his own against the terror inflicted by Sister Aloysius.
The best performance of the three, however, is turned in by Amy Adams as Sister James, an ideal young nun reacting to incredible politics going on in the parish. Adams’ character clearly undergoes the greatest transformation during the course of the film, and Adams’ talents make the most of the journey.
The production and set design in “Doubt” capture a 1960s Catholic school and working-class neighborhood in a way that is a joy to look at. The certainty with which Sister Aloysius pursues her quest to have Father Flynn removed is a marvel to behold. All in all, “Doubt” is an evening at the movies well spent.
(1 hr 44. Rated PG-13 in the USA for thematic material. In English. With Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius Beauvier, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Father Brendan Flynn, Amy Adams as Sister James, Viola Davis as Mrs. Miller, Alice Drummond as Sister Veronica, Audrie J. Neenan as Sister Raymond, Susan Blommaert as Mrs. Carson, Carrie Preston as Christine Hurley, John Costelloe as Warren Hurley, Lloyd Clay Brown as Jimmy Hurley, Joseph Foster as Donald Muller, Bridget Megan Clark as Noreen Horan, Mike Roukis as William London, and Frank Shanley as Kevin.)