Doubt
2008
**½
Director: John Patrick Shanley
Cast: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Viola Davis, Joseph Foster
In 1964, Sister Aloysius, the rigid and old-fashioned principal of St. Nicholas Catholic school, becomes obsessively convinced that the compassionate and progressive Father Flynn has made advances on a black student. Sister James, the young nun who raises the initial suspicion, finds herself in the middle of the conflict. John Patrick Shanley adapted and directed his own Pulitzer Prize winning stage play Doubt: A Parable, which deals with guilt, doubt, and intolerance, among other things. The performances are good but the characters, for the most part, are disappointingly black and white, not to mention anachronistic. Especially Meryl Streep's head nun veers on caricature, although she's probably the only realistic character. The story introduces some ambiguity towards the end, but it's too little, too late. The film is relatively gripping, but it consists of long and stagy scenes, only one of which is truly memorable, namely the confrontation between Sister Aloysius and the boy's mother.
