Doubt
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Amy Adams, Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour HoffmanBrand: Buena Vista Home Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 104 minutes
Published: 2009-04-01
DVD Release Date: 2009-04-07
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Miramax
Movie Reviews of Doubt
Movie Review: A Superbly Engaging and Well-Crafted Drama!
Summary: 5 Stars
"Doubt", Father Brendan Flynn tells his congregation, "can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty." So fitting that an engaging sermon on Doubt should begin a film so thoroughly based on it. John Patrick Shanley's DOUBT is an engaging drama about what to do and where you go when you are uncertain and filled with, for lack of a better term, doubts. He wrote and directed this film based on his Tony and Pulitzer Award-Winning play. In one of the rich texts of the original play, Sister James asks Flynn if he always makes up little stories to accompany his messages. He replies, "Yes. What actually happens in life is beyond interpretation. It tends to be confusing and have no clear conclusion." Shanley seems to agree. In fact, he added the subtitle "A Parable" to DOUBT's title after it opened on Broadway. He created his own little story to explain his reasoning and thoughts on that all-enveloping feeling of uncertainty and despair. His play succeeded, and his film succeeds on many levels as well.
Meryl Streep plays Sister Aloysius, the principal of St. Nicholas Catholic School. She rules with an iron fist, hissing and hitting students during sermons and interrupting classes to humiliate and punish kids. When told by Sister James, adeptly played by Amy Adams, that "the students are all uniformly terrified of you", Streep replies wryly and nonchalantly: "That's how it works". She is, at heart, a traditionalist, who loathes Father Flynn and everything he does and stands for. When suggested that the school Christmas Pageant might include a secular song like "Frosty the Snowman" she rants on how the song inspires a pagan belief in magic and how it should be banned from the airwaves. Trust me that "Frosty" is never mentioned again. We know little of Sister Aloysius's past, other than she was married to a man who died in WWII. Is her lasting grief the reason she's so bitter? We never know, and it doesn't really matter. That's why Shanley's character development is so unique. He doesn't present us with life stories or background material. We know who the characters are and what they're like now, and their attitudes and actions in the moment shape our perception of them. We learn about them from their actions only, and we don't get motives or back-story. Shanley doesn't psychoanalyze his characters; he presents them to us and leaves us to make of them what we will. Aloysius is a true conservative, incorruptible and solid in her faith and methods...the true nun. She will "do what needs to be done".
That's why she launches herself and Sister James into a campaign of suspicion against Flynn, who has taken a particular interest in the school's first African American student, Donald Muller. Sister James comes to Aloysius with concerns: Flynn has summoned Muller to the rectory for a private meeting, and, after returning, Donald acted strangely and smelt of alcohol. He's the alter boy. Did he sneak some wine? Or, as Aloysius is convinced, was he given some by Flynn? After an initial confrontation with Flynn, Aloysius is convinced he is taking advantage of young Donald and his fervent denials are lies. Sister James wants no part of it, but it's too late. She's in it already. And Sister Aloysius won't stop until Father Flynn is punished for his sin. It's no matter that there is no proof whatsoever. She has her certainty, and she's justified in all means she uses to bring him to justice.
Streep's personification of Aloysius is one of the best I've seen. She completely submerges herself into the character, adapting mannerisms and speaking habits so unique and perfect you find yourself saying, this can't possibly be the woman I saw bouncing on mattresses, jumping with wild gesticulations into the ocean, and singing ABBA songs in the trailer for MAMMA MIA! Well, it is. That's the thing about Streep; she plays all of her roles with such cleverness and exclusivity that you can't possibly associate them closely with each other. As Sister Aloysius she is a tsunami of acting, debating with Flynn with such forcefulness and convincing James with such smoothness and wit. She deserved to win her Oscar nomination.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Flynn, can't seem to decide whether his character is in the wrong or not. One minute he'll make Flynn's denials seem false and forced, but in some scenes, as in the last debate between him and Streep, he is so convincing that his innocence is thoroughly established in our minds. Just as we can't decide, neither can he. In one scene his characteristics will scream "I'm lying! I've sinned! Look no further, here I am!" and in some other scenes he'll make you wonder how you ever questioned his purity. Maybe this was how he intended to play his character, but I found myself wishing he would, as an actor, decide whether Flynn was in the right or not and play the character that way. Anyhow, his arguments with Streep, especially the last, shoot out sparks from the screen.
Amy Adams is wonderful in her role as Sister James, the nun who got herself into this mess and just wants out. She came to Sister Aloysius with the purest of intentions, and now she is punished for it. "I wish I could be like you," she tells Aloysius. "Because I can't sleep at night anymore. Everything seems uncertain to me." In early scenes she is radiant while teaching, a joy to the kids in her class and a joy for the audience to watch. During a later scene in her classroom, she is overwhelmed by it all. She becomes like Aloysius, snapping at her students and threatening punishment. She apologizes to the class, but by the end of the film she is transformed. She has doubts, and she's lost her joy in teaching. She looks up to Aloysius as something to strive to and to Flynn as a mentor, and she's torn between them. Adams, in her early scenes, reminds one of her earlier roles (one critic said that Amy Adams is "very good at playing dumb smart people"), but soon she breaks out of the mold and fleshes out her character. Viola Davis SO deserved to win an Oscar for her brief role as Donald's mother, who wants him to complete his schooling at St. Nicholas. "It's just `till June," she says. After this school, he may even have a chance at college. She's accepting of her son's "nature" and is fine with Flynn's relationship with her boy. "He has his motives," she says. "Everyone has their motives, you have yours. But do I question him, when he's kind to my boy? Never." She's heartbreaking in her only scene, as a mother who just can't do any more. She wants the best for her son, but when will wanting the best come to something bad? When does it get to the point where she just doesn't care anymore?
Questions, questions. The film is full of them, and not all of them get answered. Many will be unsatisfied with the end of the film, but I thought it was perfect. The final line and final revelation of the film spoke oceans to me, and it further proved Shanley's talent as a writer. He is a decent director as well, using several inventive techniques to exploit the audience's emotions. And yes, several emotions are exploited. This film is an intelligent, engaging drama and you won't stop thinking until way after the credits are done rolling. Think of how many films keep you on your toes and provoke thoughts and questions still after the film is over. I bet that list is short.
DOUBT succeeds as a very appealing and satisfying drama, that deserved all of its 5 Oscar nominations. It forces one to look deeper than the initial suspicion and the initial revelation. The performances are top-class and the script inspired. The messages and feelings the story provoke are poignant and affecting...though not necessarily classified as "morals" there are many themes to the story that you would be hard pressed not to pick up. Yes, doubt affects everyone, even the most firm. But when does uncertainty envelop all? How far does certainty alone carry you? How can circumstance be enough to condemn a man or prove his innocence? Ask yourself these questions while viewing DOUBT, but be open for your answers to change. Don't be too certain, like Sister Aloysius, for purity can give way to corruption, and conviction can give way to doubt.
Summary of Doubt
From Miramax Films comes one of the most honored and acclaimed motion pictures of the year, Doubt. Based on the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play, Doubt is a mesmerizing, suspense-filled drama with four riveting performances from Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis that will have you pinned to the edge of your seat. Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Streep), the rigid and fear-inspiring principal of the Saint Nicholas Church School, suffers an extreme dislike for the progressive and popular parish priest Father Flynn (Hoffman). Looking for wrongdoing in every corner, Sister Aloysius believes she's uncovered the ultimate sin when she hears Father Flynn has taken a special interest in a troubled boy. But without proof, the only thing certain is doubt."One of the best pictures of the year," (USA Today, Rolling Stone, New York Post, San Francisco Examiner, Roger Ebert).
Bonus Features include From Stage To Screen, Scoring Doubt, The Sisters Of Charity
It's always a risk when writers direct their own work, since some playwrights don't travel well from stage to screen. Aided by Roger Deakins, of No Country for Old Men fame, who vividly captures the look of a blustery Bronx winter, Moonstruck's John Patrick Shanley pulls it off. If Doubt makes for a dialogue-heavy experience, like The Crucible and 12 Angry Men, the words and ideas are never dull, and a consummate cast makes each one count. Set in 1964 and loosely inspired by actual events, Shanley focuses on St. Nicholas, a Catholic primary school that has accepted its first African-American student, Donald Miller (Joseph Foster), who serves as altar boy to the warm-hearted Father Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Donald may not have any friends, but that doesn't worry his mother, Mrs. Miller (Viola Davis in a scene-stealing performance), since her sole concern is that her son gets a good education. When Sister James (Amy Adams) notices Flynn concentrating more of his attentions on Miller than the other boys, she mentions the matter to Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), the school's hard-nosed principal. Looking for any excuse to push the progressive priest out of her tradition-minded institution, Sister Aloysius sets out to destroy him, and if that means ruining Donald's future in the process--so be it. Naturally, she's the least sympathetic combatant in this battle, but Streep invests her disciplinarian with wit and unexpected flashes of empathy. Of all the characters she's played, Sister Aloysius comes closest to caricature, but she never feels like a cartoon; just a sad woman willing to do anything to hold onto what little she has before the forces of change render her--and everything she represents--redundant. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Stills from Doubt (Click for larger image)
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