Plot
In a Bronx Catholic school in 1964 a popular priest's ambiguous relationship with a troubled 12 year old black student is questioned by the school's principal.
Release Year: 2008
Rating: 7.6/10 (52,156 voted)
Critic's Score: 68/100
Director:
John Patrick Shanley
Stars: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams
Storyline It's 1964, St. Nicholas in the Bronx. A charismatic priest, Father Flynn, is trying to upend the schools' strict customs, which have long been fiercely guarded by Sister Aloysius Beauvier, the iron-gloved Principal who believes in the power of fear and discipline. The winds of political change are sweeping through the community, and indeed, the school has just accepted its first black student, Donald Miller. But when Sister James, a hopeful innocent, shares with Sister Aloysius her guilt-inducing suspicion that Father Flynn is paying too much personal attention to Donald, Sister Aloysius sets off on a personal crusade to unearth the truth and to expunge Flynn from the school. Now, without a shard of proof besides her moral certainty, Sister Aloysius locks into a battle of wills with Father Flynn which threatens to tear apart the community with irrevocable consequences.
Writers: John Patrick Shanley, John Patrick Shanley
Cast: Meryl Streep
-
Sister Aloysius Beauvier
Philip Seymour Hoffman
-
Father Brendan Flynn
Amy Adams
-
Sister James
Viola Davis
-
Mrs. Miller
Alice Drummond
-
Sister Veronica
Audrie Neenan
-
Sister Raymond
Susan Blommaert
-
Mrs. Carson
Carrie Preston
-
Christine Hurley
John Costelloe
-
Warren Hurley
Lloyd Clay Brown
-
Jimmy Hurley
Joseph Foster
-
Donald Miller
(as Joseph Foster II)
Mike Roukis
-
William London
Haklar Dezso
-
Zither Player
Frank Shanley
-
Kevin
Robert Ridgell
-
Organist
Taglines:
There is no evidence. There are no witnesses. But for one, there is no doubt.
Filming Locations: Beach and Mansion Streets, Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
Box Office Details
Budget: $20,000,000
(estimated)
Opening Weekend: $507,226
(USA)
(14 December 2008)
(15 Screens)
Gross: $33,422,556
(USA)
(5 April 2009)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
When filming was over, director John Patrick Shanley sent Amy Adams the Nativity Scene that Sister Veronica puts together near the end of the film as a gift.
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes:
William is sent home for having a bloody nose. He walks through an intersection with crosswalk indicators. The traffic signal changes from red to green, but the crosswalk indicators don't change.
"Doubt can be a bond as strong as fear." If ever there was a time in
our country's recent history where that line carried the force of
relevance, it's now.
And though it's set in the early 1960s (roughly a year after the
Kennedy assassination), there's no doubt that John Patrick Shanley's
adaptation of his own Pulitzer-Prize winning stage play is a response
to these dark times, when the only thing that seems to be uniting
Americans is their collective insecurity and ever-weakening belief that
things are going to get better.
At the center of "Doubt" is the mystery of whether or not a priest
(played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) is guilty of taking advantage of an
altar boy. The priest's primary (and really sole) prosecutor is Sister
Aloysius, the uber-stern and terrifying principal of the Catholic
school that provides "Doubt" its setting. Watching Hoffman and Streep
spar is like watching two professional tennis players at their best,
and fans of expert movie acting should waste no time in seeing the
sparks fly between these two. The movie purposely never clarifies the
ambiguity of the charges -- is Hoffman's priest truly guilty of
something, or is Sister Aloysius simply on a mad witch hunt? Streep's
character is the most fascinating. From one perspective, she's a nearly
maniacal harpie, intent on ruining a man's life and career for no clear
reason. However, if her accusations are legitimate, she's a sort of
hero, demanding justice from a male-dominated world that's willing to
look the other way. Streep's performance is something fascinating to
behold -- she can convey more with an arched eyebrow than another actor
can with his entire face.
Amy Adams gets the pivotal role of a young, innocent nun who first
brings her suspicions about the priest to her superior, and then sees
them become Frankenstein's monster. In many ways, Adams' character is
us, the audience, placed in the position of having to come to a
conclusion on our own when empirical evidence is lacking. Adams' role
is the least showy, but she does much with it.
And then there's Viola Davis, who, in five minutes of screen time,
decimates the audience with some shocking conclusions of her own as the
altar boy's mother. The insulated, hushed world of the Catholic Church
is blown wide open by this struggling mother, who's seen more of the
world than any of the priests and nuns sheltered behind the church's
walls, and who puts the film's running themes of racial and gender
inequality into harsh perspective.
The central conflict in "Doubt" in many ways comes down to each
individual's view of the world and his or her ability to accept the
ambiguity of day to day living. There's a lot about the world we will
never know and much about our futures we'll never be able to control.
So what's better -- anticipating the worst and therefore being prepared
when it comes; or believing in the best and running the risk of being
disappointed when it fails to arise? The movie just poses this question
-- it doesn't try to answer it.
"Doubt" is not a fancy movie and will win no awards for its cinematic
audacity. But in looking back at the movies of 2008, I imagine it will
stand as one of the best-acted films of the year.
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