Would it be wrong of me to suggest that Doubt, a
fine film overall, should’ve stayed on Broadway because it
doesn’t accomplish anything on a technical level that
demonstrates it had to be made into a movie? I don’t think
so—admittedly I’ve never seen the play—because writer/director
John Patrick Shanley (adapting from his Pulitzer-prize-winning
source) essentially just points a camera at what would’ve
existed onstage anyway. While the medium of film shored up four
amazing actors and will bring Doubt exposure, it doesn’t
allow the material to offer the same viewer-relationship I
assume its source captured because Shanley doesn’t take full
advantage of filmic devices. Just as theatre has its own unique
way of bonding with an audience, so does film – and for this
bond to be forged, a filmmaker and his editor must hone
camerawork, transitions, staging, et cetera. Doubt, while
not technically incompetent, remains blocked and constructed
like theatre, awkward in film. As a result, the picture doesn’t
pack the punch it should have, but is nonetheless worthwhile for
its thought-provoking script and Oscar-worthy acting.
The premise is simple, but invites
far-reaching thought. It’s 1964 in the Bronx at the Saint
Nicholas Church and School, where Father Brendan Flynn (Philip
Seymour Hoffman) is the priest. Father Flynn’s view of the
Church’s role in its patrons’ and students’ lives is less
old-fashioned than that of school principal Sister Aloysius
Beauvier (Meryl Streep)—in one scene he sets her off by
suggesting the children sing a secular song at their Christmas
performance—making him a subject of grimacing resentment. This
comes to a tragic head when Sister James (Amy Adams), the
intimidated new history teacher, tells Sister Aloysius about an
instance in which Father Flynn called Donald Muller (Joseph
Foster) down to the rectory for no apparent reason, implying he
may have molested Donald. Sister Aloysius at first has no doubt
Father Flynn committed the act, confronting him and forcing him
to provide an excuse. He says hat Donald was drinking altar-wine
and he wanted to handle it without having to follow official
procedure and expel Donald from the altar-boys. But Sister
Aloysius still has her suspicions, pursuing Donald’s mother
(Viola Davis) and vowing to have Father Flynn removed from the
Church.
The story quickly surpasses any
gimmicks it may have lent itself to in the hands of a lesser
writer. Shanley invites the viewer to consider the full range of
possibilities to explain what happened. Yes, Father Flynn either
molested Donald or he didn’t, but the situation isn’t that
simple. Perhaps the reason why Sister Aloysius is so confident
or that Sister James brought it up in the first place is that
they themselves were molested as children and are paranoid. Or
perhaps Father Flynn really did do it and their assumptions are
right; after all, he does in one scene lecture the boys on
grooming their nails properly and sweats profusely when Sister
Aloysius questions him on the matter. And even if he did do it,
perhaps it’s best that it’s kept quiet, as Donald’s mother
painstakingly admits to Sister Aloysius because she sees no
bright future for her African-American son if he doesn’t get
through prized Saint Nicholas to qualify for college. Account
for the general feeling of instability in the country—the film
takes place during the Civil Rights movement, just after the
assassination John F. Kennedy—and you’ll realize what a complex
web Shanley has spun.
The performances hit all the right
notes. Hoffman, with seamlessness, is able to play Father Flynn
as both sleazy and caring. How he shifts from one to the other
and back in a single moment I’m not entirely sure, evidence that
he is one of our best working actors. Hoffman effectively skews
towards a more sympathetic portrayal because the accusations
against his character are so great that they provide all the
doubt one needs to consider the possibility that something went
on in the rectory. Said accusations are made with menacing vigor
by Streep, who is as good as ever and delivers an unforgettable,
stomach-churning character-epiphany in the film’s final scene.
Supporting the two leads are Adams, dependably playing the
vulnerable trigger of the calamity, and Davis, who in single
passage will truly break your heart and may soon be regarded as
the Oscar-frontrunner.
But again I return to the question
I posed at the beginning of this review. Had these four actors
appeared in a run of the stage-play, Doubt would’ve been
more powerful that way. It’s a movie with so many lovable
qualities but it’s strangely unlovable itself because, from the
first oddly-lensed shots, there’s a feeling that the
breathtaking material belongs in a different medium. It’s hard
to get to the root of this—I could bore you with dissections of
individual frames and transitions all day—but it’s a feeling
that surfaces often. While Doubt’s amateur aesthetic and
assembly become easier to ignore as the film becomes
progressively engrossing, the film is nonetheless marred from
emerging as the full-scale masterpiece it could have been.
-Danny Baldwin, Bucket Reviews
Review Published on: 12.12.2008
Screened on:
12.3.2008 at the Aidikoff Screening Room in Beverly
Hills, CA.