Doubt

2008. Dir: John Patrick Shanley. Starring: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Viola Davis and Joseph Foster. ●●●○○

In the end this weekend I chose to see the peadophile priest film, mainly because it was on at the best time to fit with my rehearsal schedule. I was looking forward to it, mind. The combination of highly buzzed performances from the main cast and an adaptation of a Tony award winning Broadway hit.



In case you aren't aware of the basic plot it revolves around a titanic battle between the headmistress of a Roman Catholic bronx school (Sister Aloysius, played by Meryl Streep) and Father Flynn (Hoffman) a modernising Priest, ostensibly over an alleged incident of molestation against a black pupil, although there are many reasons why the pair don't really interact. Adams plays a novice caught between the titans and Viola Davis plays the boys mother, who just wants him to survive in the school until the end of the academic year.

It is important that the incident is only alleged, as one of the key selling ponts of the one-act play was that the audience went home questioning and doubting the guilt or innocence of Father Flynn. As I walked out of the cinema I did have my doubts, my I suspect that I was more one way than the other. This is largely due to the opening out of the film to include the boy (Foster) as well as a supporting cast of rebellious school children and frail nuns.

It's not uncommon for a film adaptation of a play to introduce new characters, and I can certainly see why it was done. Unlike, say Closer or Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe, Doubt is defined by the relationships between the characters you see and the characters you don't in the play. This can work on the stage but in film the limitations are different. As a result there are a number of quick moments between Donald and Flynn where you spend the time thinking "Is Father Flynn buggering the boys?" It simply cannot be helped.

The last ten minutes between Streep and Hoffman/Adams also seem to push you in one direction.

There were also some elements of the screenplay that felt heavy handed in the adaptation. Storms, lightbulbs blowing, etc. So God is unhappy, we get it, no need to overdo the imagery.

The performances from Streep, Hoffman and Davis are uniformly excellent. I was less enamoured with Adams, her cloying naiveity seemingly a odds with her position. As a consequence I found the last scene where Sister Aloysius opens out to Sister James at odds with the way the characters had been playing around each other up to that point.

Hoffman's monologue like sermons were also very effective, as anyone who has regularly attended Church will tell you the way a Priest addresses the congregation varies significantly. Hoffman was confident and firm, maybe even stand offish, which certainly informed the rest of his performance. I disliked the imagined story in the second sermon - I felt we could have done better by just watching the protagonists as they respond to his words.

Aside from the perfomances there is very little to recommend the film. The cinematography was generally dull, and the decision to do some shots angling the camera was frankly jarring and took me away from the action. There was little to work with on sets and costumes (for nuns and schools, everything tends to look the same) but there was an oddly antiseptic feel, like none of the characters were in rooms they frequented often.

Overall I would love to encourage you to see the film, if only for the performances, but to be honest when I left I was thinking I wish I had seen the play. I hope you see the play too.