Required viewing before you see this movie is the superb documentary 'Deliver Us From Evil.' It is about five years old and concerns itself with a Catholic priest named Father O'Grady who was one of the most notorious pedophiles in the church. He had maybe over a hundred victims. Whenever anybody complained, he was promoted.
'Doubt' takes place in 1964 about a year after the Kennedy Assassination and during the great 'freshening up' of the Catholic Church. It is important to note though that it was adapted from a 2005 Pulitzer prize winning play. So although it takes place in the sixties, it is very much of today's time. Everything you have heard about priests in the last decade bears down on the edges of this story. But far be it from this movie to only have one Big Issue. It throws in a couple more like the alleged child victim being the first black kid to be desegregated into the school, a conflict between the old Catholic Church and the new one, and an unflattering view of church hierarchy and sexism. The mere fact that this movie can get through two hours without dodging any of the issues and without directly offending everybody is probably the reason it got the Pulitzer. I think it deserved it. (Sort of, I mean if the Pulitzers wanted to be respectable they would start giving out awards to the most substantial art-form in the world right now. Need I say the word 'movies.' If they did that I could give out a list of more deserving titles. But I have no doubt that this would make one hell of a play.)
Like a play there more talk than walk, but I don't think it will bore anyone without Attention Deficit Disorder. There is a trio of very good performances. Leading the pack is Meryl Streep who always seems to get the best roles. She will definitely get an Oscar Nomination. If she hadn't already won so many they would probably throw the Oscar at her for this one. Her character is one of her best. A very stern, strong, and disciplined nun. The type little kids would fear as they walked to the principals office. But this is no caricature. Streep infuses into the character much to admire. For instance she takes on the parish priest she suspects with very little evidence and absolutely no authority. Love her or hate her, this woman has a lot of guts. If the priest were guilty, and he might be, Sister Aloysious is the type of person you would want around.
The priest is played righteously by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I don't care if this guy is innocent, he's still an asshole. He might be really nice to the black kid, but he's a complete jerk to the nuns. He sits in Meryl Streep's chair, he uses his sermons to get back at Amy Adams, he seems to completely disregard the sacrifice the sisters make every day. I've got a problem with the Catholic Church in general and how it treats its woman, and I think this movie makes it quite clear what is wrong. The nuns get up at five am to pray. They eat in silence. The men eat with music playing and laughter in the air. The nuns teach history and discipline the students. The priest teaches gym. The women wear the most constrictive and ugly black cassocks. The men dress in flowing gowns and get the fame of preaching sermons. What makes Meryl Streep's performance so great is that it captures that torn conviction of a true believer who knows that her superiors are not as saintly as she is. She is like many of us, forced into dead end jobs and seeing younger less experienced people rise through the ranks to be the boss. No wonder she is such a bitch.
Rounding out the trio of great performances is Amy Adams who does a terrible job at not being beautiful. She is the shy type of nun. (Nuns come in two types: shy and mean. Over time the shy become mean.) There is some talk of giving an Oscar Nomination to the mother of the black kid who only has one scene in this movie. I do not understand this sort of thing. Every year the Academy will pull a stunt like this, give a nomination to an old veteran that does a big boo-hoo with a tiny unsubstantial role that nobody will ever remember (Ruby Dee, anyone?). It would be a real travesty if they gave it to this woman because a much better, much more important performance is staring them right in the face. And that is the one by Amy Adams. Her character is important because it is the middle ground between the two fighters. We see most of the story through her eyes. Both Meryl and Philip try to win her to her side. and it is Amy's reaction to them that sways our point of view back and forth between them.
In the end we are not very sure if it happened or didn't happen. This doesn't make the movie any less suspenseful. In addition to gripping my coat the entire length of the movie I was looking fervently into the corners of the screen to glimpse any extra evidence of what actually went on. Both sides are plausible, both sides are realistic, both can't be right. This movie is not big enough to get serious Oscar treatment, but it should be enough for an acting nomination for Meryl Streep and an Adapted Screenplay Nomination for John Patrick Shanley. The cinematographer is the great Roger Deakins who is perhaps the most unduly snubbed cameraman Hollywood has ever produced. Like all of his movies, this one has a very original, crisp and beautiful look to it. The way it is shot makes us feel the cold winter breezes. I don't know enough about cinematography to justify a prediction but I would say its about time that the Academy started throwing Oscars at Deakins. He's the only cinematographer I know by name and for good reason. (For examples of his work look at No Country for Old Men, Jarhead, A Beautiful Mind, O Brother Where Art Thou, Fargo, and The Shawshank Redemption.)
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