Doubt

Doubt

"Doubt" is the story of Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep) and her doubts about Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his relationship with a boy in their Catholic school during the mid 1960s. This is a movie that hinges on strong performances and it delivers. Of course you cannot go wrong with Streep and Hoffman, and Amy Adams turns in a strong performance as well. But this is Streep's show. I've never seen an actress so capable of insighting my anger so easily. She is so strict and so sure of herself and it is so infuriating. But it can be a bit funny, too. Her obsession with the use of ball-point pens and a debate on the deeper meaning of Frosty the Snowman help to lighten the mood of an otherwise serious film.

Streep smacks kids in the back of the head, yells at them, and just has a general look of disgust and suspicion molded onto her face. This is in keeping with certain nuns from that time, I am told. So this film could be a bit nostalgic (or horrorific) for certain audience members. I didn't go through that form of school, so it all seemed a bit comedic to me, especially from a teaching standpoint. But Streep embodies this character and even though she's won before, I think she deserved the Oscar (though I haven't seen Anne Hathaway's performance yet). Hoffman turns in yet another impressive performance, though it might just seem impressive because he held his own against Streep.

The performances are so important because this film is truly about doubt. Do you believe Streep or Hoffman? Do you side with Hoffman simply because Streep is so mean? Do you side with Streep because of your preconceptions of the Church these days? This film is about what you bring into it, which makes it very interesting. It's always great when a film can be entertaining while it makes you question your beliefs and forces you to make a decision. The performances are so important because the actors need to try to sway your belief but you also have to be able to doubt them. I may have mentioned my hate for Streep's character, but her certainty is infecting and I found myself seeing eye to eye with her a few times. That may be the most important part of her performance; you might hate her, but she makes sense.The performances do make this film (which is adapted from a play, which would explain why the acting is so important) but the writer/director, John Patrick Shanley, does try to make it visually appealing. There isn't anything amazing about the style, but it works. Shanley tilts the camera a few times to create the feeling of uncertainty and that works, but the subject matter doesn't really need any help.

Eric Harris - www.canneltoncritic.com

Doubt

Well, if anyone has read my reviews for "Mamma Mia!" and/or "Julie & Julia" or if you have ever talked to me for an extended period of time, one thing is bound to come up...my love for Meryl Streep - and for good reason. For the past three decades this woman has proved that she is an amazing actress. She is capable of playing every single role that people can possibly offer her. Watch this, then watch "The Devil Wears Prada," then watch "Julie & Julia," and you will see how amazing an actress she is...and that's just looking at roles from the past 3 years. Wow, that took up a lot of space...sorry about that. The rest of the cast of "Doubt" is fantastic as well: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis. The four main actors all got Oscar nominations earlier this year and they deserved each one. The script also was nominated, having been adapted from a play. The movie takes place at a Catholic School...I'm aware this may turn people off from the movie right away, but let's be open-minded...where Meryl Streep and Amy Adams are nuns (Sister Aloysius and Sister James, respectively) and Philip Seymour Hoffman is a priest (Father Flynn). Yep...now the cross shaped poster makes more sense, doesn't it. Well anyway, Father Flynn is accused of molesting a black boy and Sister Aloyius is convinced he's guilty and Sister James thinks he is innocent. That's the really brief plot synopsis. The movie is primarily character-driven, so strong dialogue is always helpful. This movie is not for everyone obviously...but I thought it was very well-done and one of the best movies of 2008. The cast is just so good. The ending may also bother some...but I'll go with "it just promotes discussion"...

(Read Less...)

Doubt

I always think Meryl Streep is over-rated. I talk her down whenever I get the chance. Then I see a Meryl Streep movie and I remember that, oh yeah, Meryl Streep really is the best actress on the planet.

The twist is this: a week later, I'm back to thinking Streep is mediocre. It's happened before. It'll happen again.

Leo DiCaprio has the same effect on me.

Anyway, Streep's amazing in "Doubt." So's Hoffman. But the real reason to see it -- and the real reason they're in it -- is John Patrick Shanley's fantastic script.

Hoffman plays a sympathetic priest. Streep plays an unsympathetic nun. But then Hoffman becomes less sympathetic -- maybe he's guilty of child abuse -- and Streep is suddenly more sympathetic. Then they revert -- there's no proof of guilt -- and Streep is back to being a baddie.

And that's just the first half hour.

The other fascinating thing about the script is what's left out. At one point, Streep's nun admits she committed a "mortal sin" in her past. We never find out what that sin is, but boy would I like to know, and boy am I happy I don't. Somehow I know if I found out what the sin was, I'd be disappointed. My imagination can come up with some awfully good sins without outside help.

Shanley also directed this. Ideally every script would be directed by its writer. The division of responsibility is a throwback to cinema's beginnings when each studio churned out hundreds of movies a year, which required an assembly-line style of production. It's not a logic thing. Directing requires no special skills -- certainly not the nauseating idea of a "visual talent" -- that cannot be acquired by the writer just as easily as anyone else.

Doubt

This movie says one thing indelibly: a play is a play is a play. Why Hollywood keeps mistaking theatre for cinema is beyond me. Maybe all the accolades get in the way. But no matter how great a play, it must be destroyed if it’s to make a great movie. That’s why Baz Luhrmann was right to wreck Romeo + Juliet. If you worship words, you shouldn’t be making movies. Movies are pictures, not text. The trouble for writer/director John Patrick Shanley is that he’s made Doubt into a monument to his own (award-winning) stage play. As a movie: it would make a great play.

Set in the 60s the way Chaucer set tales in a barnyard, Doubt picks elements of the times that suit its purpose. At a Catholic school that might as well be called St Allegory, a repressive nun (Meryl Streep) rules over the children, chiding progress like the spirit of the 50s. She bemoans the kids’ calligraphy, and doubts that the one new nun at the school (Amy Adams) has the guts to enforce discipline the old-fashioned way. But something worse comes: a new priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman); who dotes on one of his altar boys. Is he loving, kind and Vatican II personified? Or – as rigid certainty would have it – is he up to no good?

The crux of the drama here is that there’s no dramatic irony. The audience doesn’t see Hoffman do anything, so, in effect; we share the characters’ doubts. The movie tips the scales a little by having Hoffman grow his fingernails long (see: De Niro in Angel Heart, or stop and think about long fingernails on a man for a second), but this isn’t Philip Seymour Hoffman of ten years ago (back then, you’d have figured him for a sex pervert if he was playing Superman).

The trouble comes with the acting. “Stagey” is, ironically, a bad bad word when it’s applied to actors. And (almost) everyone in Doubt is “stagey” as hell. Why is this bad? Because we’re watching closely – and to watch someone lie close-up is distracting. Doubting an actor is like doubting what you eat; you can’t savour anything. So you watch Meryl Streep hit her vocal marks (blink, point, look left, look right) and all you can see is the script.

Streep has fun with her role, but it’s the worst of her. My bet is that she gave Shanley what he wanted. Or that’s my hope. She does a Pacino in Doubt, that is: draw the focus to her eyes, and speak her lines in the style of Meryl Streep. Where there’s comedy, she mines it (Hoffman: “Where is your compassion?” Streep: “Nowhere you can get at it.”). Mostly, she hams it up.

Amy Adams once again plays a child-woman. Her character is meant to be earnestly sweet (like every woman she’s played since Junebug) but she’s got to watch she doesn’t flutter her eyelids her entire career. The nun she plays is so meek she’d apologise for saying the rosary. Adams is cute, but sometimes she’s so cute it’s like watching a hamster play Ophelia.

Philip Seymour Hoffman fairs better, but he’s still acted off the screen by Viola Davis. She’s the “almost” when I say that “almost” everyone in Doubt is “stagey”. She plays the altar boy’s mother. And I don’t know if she had ear-plugs in when Shanley was directing her, or if she just thought: this is my break, so f— it. But she delivers her speech (about her son) like she was the boy’s mother. And for five minutesDoubt is a story being told, not a theatre revival.

Don’t think that I don’t like John Patrick Shanley. He’s a great writer of fables (Moonstruck, Joe Versus the Volcano), but he’s been working in theatre for too long, and theatre has stuck to him. It isn’t that Doubthas only one setting – or that it’s all talk – that makes it “stagey”. It’s the way everyone acts like they’ve thought out their performance, as if you could see the words they’d underlined on their script. The worst of the theatre is when a play’s been performed to death. Doubt is like an elegy for what worked on stage.

(Read Less...)

DOUBT (2008)

BOTTOM LINE: Despite some riveting performances from both Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, this screen translation of the stage play of the same name barely registers as a film experience, with a slow pace, boring and static visuals, at-times melodramatic direction and a lack of strong narrative flow or tension.

THE GOOD: “Doubt” starts off with an intriguing premise and story, centred on a battle of wills between old-fashioned and strict school principal Sister Aloysius (a commanding Meryl Streep) and the more free-thinking parish priest Father Flynn (an equally strong Philip Seymour Hoffman) set against the backdrop of a Catholic School with the former becoming increasingly suspicious of the latter’s close relationship with a black altar boy. The biggest strength of this film lies in its casting; scenes where Streep and Hoffman go at it are riveting to say the least. In line with the film’s title, director John Patrick Shanley manages to keep doubt in your mind throughout the entire film (and even in the end) as to what Flynn was really up to, or if Sister Aloysius was too harsh and jumped to the wrong conclusions. There is a true back and forth in position for both of these characters; at times Sister Aloysius seems overbearing and out of date in her thinking, but slowly becomes vindicated throughout the process. Father Flynn seems like a man ahead of his time with his views on changing the traditional positions of the Church, but who seemingly crosses the line with inappropriate behaviour. It would be worth noting that Amy Adams puts in a strong supporting performance as Sister James, the innocent newcomer who ultimately believes in Flynn’s innocence but does not want to acknowledge the nastier possibilities as they are too uncomfortable to deal with. Her character changes from a meek child-like innocent to a strong-willed adult, particularly when she takes some of Sister Aloysius advice and techniques to discipline her students. “Doubt” has a strong story at its heart, and with one exception in the final scene of the film, is held aloft by its commanding cast who deliver riveting performances.

THE BAD: “Doubt” is another example of a film that needed a lot more imaginative work done on the screenplay to translate its stage origins to the format of the silver screen. Director Shanley was also the original playwright, and despite his best intentions, the immovable nature of the scenes he constructs as director ultimately make it feel like a filmed staged-play. Shots are locked down, there is hardly any movement outside of the school in terms of locations, and the staging of the dramatic scenes do not convey anything cinematic. Ultimately this style drags the film down. One other unfortunate problem, and it stays with you as it is the last scene in the film, is the poor, over-the-top handling of the ending, with Sister Aloysius breaking down in tears and announcing that she has doubt. Not even Streep can save this overcooked, hammy and completely unnecessary staging of this scene. You get the point all the way through the film; hammering it in to the audience at the end diminishes the meaning of the film and makes it look tacky). A director who understood the nature of filming cinematically would have made more out of this material; in the end, “Doubt” is a noble piece of work, just not that interesting or engaging to watch as a film.

RATING: 5.5/10

Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net