SHMR #2: Doubt

Doubt- 2008
Written and Directed by John Patrick Shanley
Starring: Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams

Okay, first and foremost- let me just gust about Meryl Streep. I love her to no end, she can do no wrong, and this movie once again proves this point.

I first became aware of Doubt in the Spring of 2008 when MD and I went to go see the stage production from Playmakers Rep. Theatre on campus. I really liked it and the plot kept me on my feet. When I heard it was becoming a movie, I was excited but also a little apprehensive that the film version would lose some of the ambiguity of the play. Sorry if this spoils the movie for you, but it follows the play very closely, which made me extremely happy- all the way down to the last lines of the script.

The movie was excellent and really used lighting and camera angles to really play up the drama and tension between Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn. There is a great deal of light and wind imagery that, while it existed in the play, the film version really brought it to life. Hey, sometimes film has its advantages over theatre.

One advantage the film did not have that the stage version had was simplicity. The stage version has only four characters ever seen onstage. This limitation really helps the play achieve all the suspense that a good gossip story presents. While it is understood that there is a congregation to which Father Flynn is giving his homilies to, seeing him alone on the stage really isolates him from the rest of the cast in a way the film cannot achieve. The addition of other characters did allow the script to break from the very conversationalist style of the stage to a more visual understanding of what was going on.

My biggest issue with the film (and this is an issue I had with the play as well) was the reaction of Dennis Miller's mother. *Dennis Miller is the supposed victim of Father Flynn's inappropriateness. When hearing that her son might be involved, she reacts in a way that is very un-motherly. It is almost unnerving that she would have so little interest in the boy's well being, insisting that the situation would only last until June when the boy left the school to go to high school. Her whole reaction just seemed unrealistic and somewhat disturbing. Who knows...maybe that is what Shanley was going for, but I could have used a little more shock or horror or something from Mrs. Miller. Another instance at the end with Sister Aloysius and Sister James. I don't want to spoil the ending for those of you who haven't seen it, but the film does an awkward jump between the angry in-your-face-I'll-stop-at-nothing Sister Aloysius and her character at the end that just didn't seem to fit.

Overall, I give the movie an A-
See this movie! But not if it's the last thing you'll do on earth.

See you tomorrow when I review Casablanca!