Doubt (2008) +

A confounding little parable of rightness and wrongness, of doubt and certainty, sustained by an accumulation of intriguing performances. I don't know the play. I've avoided it, in part, because it has long impressed me as one of those essentially middle-brow moral puzzlers that tend to delight middle-brow theatre audiences (an impression fortified by its cinematic adaptation here). Yet I also understood that the piece provided four delicious roles for actors to really show their mettle (another impression fortified by this cinematic adaptation) as they maneuvered the uncertainty surround allegations regarding a priest's possibly inappropriate relationship with an adolescent boy (a boy who happens, also, to be the first African American student at a Catholic grammar school in New York, I think). In the pre-Oscar blur/buzz, much has been made of the three female performances, with conventional wisdom aligning fairly neatly as follows: Viola Davis is electrifying in the scene-stealing role of the boy's mother; Amy Adams is the weakest link as the nicest nun who happens to instigate the tempest in this particular teapot; and Meryl Streep is over-the-top and often off-pitch as the raging gorgon of a Mother Superior who leads the charge for removal of the offending priest. Generally forgotten amidst this rapidly consolidated commonsense is Phillip Seymour Hoffman as said priest, his stature as a "great actor" unquestioned as his performance goes relatively uninterrogated. So that's the set-up. MrStinky articulated my main reaction to the film as a story/narrative/piece of cinema when he said something to the effect of: "I loved the characters, the basic scenario, and the whole catholic thing -- but the story was weird." Ditto. Shanley, in adapting and directing this for the screen, made the basic mistake most films make when removing "idea dramas" from theatre. He took the roof off the story, opening it up in ways not as carefully calibrated. It seems to me that the finely tuned dramaturgy of the piece is one dependent on the tightness, the confinedness of the campus of the church/school/abbey/rectory. When Shanley moves beyond the hermetic seal of that zone, the results range from decidedly ok (as with the walking conversation between Streep and Davis) to just bad (the stylized enactment of the gossip sermon) -- but they rarely serve to amplify the internal tension within the narrative. In contrast, the scenes that provide a "behind the scenes" look at life within the insularity of the disparate Catholic worlds contained on that campus are often thrilling. (Especially effective is the juxtaposition of the partying priests and the ascetic nuns, while each group is at dinner.) However, even when such detail amplifies our appreciation of the cultural life of urban US catholicism just after midcentury, all such scenes end up diminishing the dramatic power of the narrative's driving question: did he do it? In giving us so much more to appreciate about this moment in US Catholic cultural life, Shanley and his ensemble inadvertently diminish the dramatic force of what is, ostensibly, the narrative's main urgency. The narrative, it seems to me, is about the stark polarity of a transcendant yes/no diverting into four competing and highly personal truths. This journey is muddied by the dimensions added to this film version, and it's a signal of the peril of adapting such intimate dramas for the screen. However, to return to the performances, I find it interesting that the performances have borne what is to my mind more than their share of fault for Shanley's misguided but understandable choices. First, I don't agree at all that Amy Adams is the weak link. I think she's absolutely perfect in the part. The role requires that Sister James be pure and simple, the embodiment of the audience's hope that faith will be enough in times of deep uncertainty. Adams is preternaturally gifted toward sweetness and she melds that talent with just the right level of complexity: her Sister James may yet be blessed with a simple faith but she's no simpleton. I personally found her absolutely lovely -- humane and human -- in the role and whatever grief she's gotten from the Oscar punditocracy is, to my mind, utterly undeserved. (Indeed, I would not be at all surprised if Adams sneaks through to snag the trophy this year.) As for Viola Davis, her performance is the true gem in this film, possibly my personal favorite bit of supporting actressness all year. Davis is absolutely good in a role that is ripe with depth, dimension and surprise -- and a startling absence of cliche -- and thus a possibly unique character/ization within the entire catalog of African American supporting actress nominations. As for Meryl: she's brilliant, utterly brilliant...smart, funny, scary, larger than life and profoundly human. As Sister Aloysius, Streep does what she did in Prada: giving us a character we think we know, delivering all the anticipated delights of this stock character with electrifying alacrity, while also startling us with just enough glimpses behind the mask. Streep's Aloysius is a larger than life broad who happens to wear a habit. It's a very interesting performance, one that will likely endure well beyond the grousing of this Oscar season. It's Hoffman (by whom, yes, I tend to be unimpressed) who is least effective here. Hoffman carries a beleaguered defensiveness in many of his roles; when he fights, he so often does so with an "ow - I can't believe you hit me" kind of pathos, and it's that quality that I find least effective in his work generally, and this role specifically. He's puddly when he should be rigid, shrill when he might be stolid. When Hoffman's Father Flynn sits at Sister Aloysius's desk, it seems more impolitic than an assertion of his own belief in his authority. I just don't "get" Father Flynn's sense of entitlement, especially over and against the authority of a mere nun, in Hoffman's performance. And Hoffman's clumsy handling of Flynn's overconfidence, it seems to me, mishandles an essential dimension of the character. So, again, Hoffman's the weak link, in my view, not Adams. Finally, even though I've yammered on way too long as it is, two more things. First, I'm not sure whether I like that the film "shows its hand" regarding Flynn's guilt or not. I really like that we get to see some of the kids, especially Lloyd Clay Brown as Jimmy Hurley and Joseph Foster as Donald Miller. These young actors are really solid in their roles, and Brown's Jimmy is a compelling presence on screen, so much so that it tips the narrative balance a little. Two potential readings emerge, which might both be right: one that Jimmy Hurley is Shanley's own autobiographical proxy (the idea being that in the film Shanley could put his own story in the film a little) and the other that Jimmy Hurley was actually the kid that Father Flynn was messing with (the idea being that the Sisters Aloysius and James have the right idea about the wrong kid). It's fascinating narrative thread, but one that confuses as much as it intrigues. Finally, Sister Aloysius's doubts: I really regret that the film confuses this scene as much as it did. My interpretation is, based on this single screening, is that Sister Aloysius does not doubt Flynn's guilt but the wisdom of her the church she has made a vow to serve. However, MrStinky was confused by this speech, hearing it as being about her doubting her certainty about Father Flynn. Both might be accurate interpretations but I'm sorry that the film lets this complexity read as confusion. It diminishes the Aloysius character in unproductive ways as it also dampens the power of the film. A fair to middling film, sustained by a collection of spectacular female performances.