Would almost any movie with thespian powerhouses Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman together be worth seeing? There’s no doubt.
Or, rather, there is a “Doubt” — today’s theatrical but absorbing drama of moral conflict and introspection set in the 1964-era Bronx, directed and written by John Patrick Shanley from his Tony Award-winning Broadway play.
Making it suspenseful, beyond the story’s child sexual abuse mystery, we get to watch breathlessly while Streep teeters close to overacting as the stinging Sister Aloysius. Does the Grand Dame of Modern Cinema finally veer beyond over-the-top in old age as did such greats as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford?
Nah. But it’s fun to watch it almost happen.
Streep sinks her considerable chops deep into the part of an intimidating nun, a parochial elementary school principal with a hard working-class accent and an even harder disciplinary style. By contrast, Hoffman’s charming parish priest represents the inviting and less strict Catholicism of post-Vatican II reform.
Not without some good reason, Sister Aloysius not only disapproves of Father Flynn’s religious progressiveness, she also suspects him of having an inappropriate relationship with the school’s first black student. But the sister’s genuine concern for the vulnerable altar boy, Donald Miller (Joseph Foster II), becomes a convenient excuse for her long-awaited confrontation with the father.
Besides Donald and his troubled mother (well played by Viola Davis in a tiny but crucial role), young idealistic Sister James (an endearing Amy Adams) is also caught between the headmistress and the priest. Though she too has a negative instinct about Father Flynn’s predilections, she feels drawn to the compassionate “new” church that he represents.
The elaborate speeches and blatant visual symbolism — including lots of foreboding windy weather, for example — are often laid on thick in this translation from stage to screen. But Shanley (whose previous screenwriting credits range from “Moonstruck” to “Joe Versus the Volcano”) interweaves a thoughtfully complicated tangle here of sexual identity, race, family dysfunction and pre-feminist patriarchy that defies easy ethical inquiry.
Is Father Flynn a pedophile? Or, perhaps more importantly, is there room for ambiguity in a world of black-and-white thinking?
As the idea of doubt in “Doubt” is pondered, one thing is for sure in this parable of spiritual impasse: Streep and Hoffman, along with Adams, play off of each other with such authority and talent. It must be heaven-sent.
Quick info
“Doubt”
4 out of 5 Stars
Stars: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams
Director: John Patrick Shanley
Rated PG-13 for thematic material
Running Time: 105 minutes
