Blog Review: "Doubt"

Director: John Patrick Shanley
Written by: John Patrick Shanley(screenplay)
John Patrick Shanley (play)
Produced by: Scott Rudin, Mark Roybal
Starring: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Viola Davis, Joseph Foster

“Doubt” is the film that you should have studied senior year of high school, college, or adolescence, right before you tread into the adult world. This is not a feel-good story, nor is it inspiring; rather, it is thought provoking, questioning, and painful if you apply it too personally. Screenplay, writer, and director John Patrick Shanley has created a biosphere of war in which a Nun and Priest battle with weapons familiar to us all.

The opening scene gets right to the jugular with a sincere sermon on doubt by Father Flyyn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) as Sister Beauvier (Meryl Streep) glides alongside the pews reprimanding uninterested children. Sister Beauvier and Father Flynn play each other’s foil with Sister Beauvier being portrayed as the cold and uncompassionate conservative and Father Flynn as the warm progressive man of tomorrow. Conflict through doubt arises in the mind of Sister James (Amy Adams) when she notices suspicious behavior in student Donald Miller (Joseph Foster) after returning from Father Flynn’s office. After Sister Beauvier gets wind of what may have transpired, Sister James’ doubts become her drive to convict Father Flynn.

It is Sister James who serves as our link and catalyst to Sister Beauvier and Father Flynn’s struggle to assert their truth. Initially, she is swayed by her own observations, and Sister Beauvier’s conviction, to believe that Father Flynn has lured her student into an improper relationship. But doubts arise again the next time she encounters Father Flynn as he explains that he is only looking out for Donald Miller, the lone, abused black student at the school. At this point Sister James’ begins to panic and lose sleep from being pulled back and forth by Sister Beauvier and Father Flynn’s contrasting certainties. Up to this point Sister James was our vessel, but when her ailing brother calls her from the Parish, the final battle for resolution begins to gain focus.

To arm herself for her final confrontation with Father Flynn, Sister Beauvier brings in Donald’s mother (Viola Davis) to discuss her suspicions. The dialogue that takes place between the two may be the most conflicting, contradictory, and disconcerting that I have witnessed. The pain with which Ms. Miller speaks makes it that much more difficult to decide whether you can bring yourself to disagree or agree with what she says, “I don’t care what is going on between them, he just has to make it to June.” If her son can graduate from their prestigious school then his odds of getting into a good high school, possibly college, and not incurring his abusive father’s anger, will increase greatly. She cannot allow herself to doubt that Father Flynn is telling the truth because her son’s future has so much riding on making it to June. She walks away bathed in tears, but Sister Beauvier’s conviction cannot be shaken.

Sister Beauvier and Father Flynn’s final battle for truth takes place in her office in the midst yet another lighting storm. For about ten minutes we are sloshed like dirty water by the waves of fierce and vehement assertions and possible truths that wash over our minds. “How can you be so sure!?” Father Flynn demands, “Certainty is an emotion- not a fact,’ she responds. But how can you ever be certain of anything if it is based in something so filial as emotion? How can you be certain of your belief in God and the universe if that defines definition?

After balance and resolution is found between Sister Beauvier and Father Flynn we are led to believe these sort of questions never enter the mind of Sister Beauvier. She is the only strong and constant force throughout the film, regardless of what she hears from any person. But in the silent, snow-covered courtyard when Sisters Beauvier and James are reunited, we find the truth of the film: “You have to walk away from God to pursue wrong, but it comes with a price… for I too am full of doubts!” There is no doubt in my mind that this film deserves a solid 9/10 rating.