Doubt is a gem of a
movie, brave in concept and carrying some of the best performances of 2008.
Seldom has a film’s theatrical origin worked so well in its favor. In Doubt, the roots from John Patrick
Shanley’s play provides us with no more than what we need to know, the time,
place, and situation. It’s 1964 and virtually all of the action takes place
within the stone walls of St. Nicholas, a parochial school in the Bronx where
Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an unorthodox, forward-thinking priest,
clashes with the uncompromisingly traditional Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep).
When a chance arises to have him removed amid allegations of improper conduct
toward a young boy, the hard-nosed nun moves forward in setting a trap.
We never know more than any one character
does at any given moment about. Doubt is true to its title, operating like a
game of chess. We only see the moves, the thoughts remain internalized, as
does, indeed, the truth of the allegation. In truth, Father Flynn’s guilt is
less important than we may think. Sister Aloysius wants it to be true and is
set on proving it. Without evidence, she only need cast enough doubt to damage
the Father’s reputation irrevocably. What is less certain is how deeply she
believes in her own conviction, though this too is ultimately of little
consequence. She is certain of what conclusion she wants and is only concerned
with railroading the parish in that direction. For all we are told, her
allegations may be true and Doubt
gives just enough evidence to suggest that they may not be unfounded. If we are
looking for a definite answer, however, we are asking the wrong question.
Perhaps a better question, though
still not the point, is to what degree are Sister Aloysius’s and Father Flynn’s
behaviors justified. The Sister is, at least superficially, confident in her
righteousness. She admits to be moving “away from God, but in His service;” in
other words, bringing down Father Flynn justifies her unholy method. By the end
of her ordeal she will have discovered just how troubling stepping away from
God is to her. She is likely being sincere when she professes to be acting with
the well-being of Donald Miller (Joseph Foster), the school’s only
African-American pupil whom the Father has taken under his wing. She takes her position
too seriously for us to believe otherwise. But there can also be little doubt
that her war against Father Flynn is personal to some degree and started even
before his bond with Donald Miller. It was evident at least since the moment
the film opens when the priest’s sermon on doubt arises her suspicion. Neither
is a secret that she hates, or maybe fears, what he represents; progress in the
Catholic Church.
Sister Aloysius has resisted the
passage of time with authoritarian rule even as the Vatican itself was pushing
forward, confiscating headsets, banning cough drops (“candy by any name”), and
seems to have a particularly harsh view of ballpoint pens. Father Flynn is a
new type of force and, because he is her superior, she feels less capable of
stopping him. Her only recourse seems to be to ruin his name. When an
inappropriate relationship with Donald is suspected, she acts like the parish
cat seizing the moment to pounce at the mouse. She needs for the allegation to
be true and starts with convincing herself, but has little success with anyone
else. The young Sister James (Amy Adams), despite bringing Father Flynn’s odd
behavior to the attention of Sister Aloysius in the first place, ultimately
gives the priest the benefit of the doubt. Even if Sister Aloysius dismissed
Sister James as a hopelessly naïve force of benevolence incapable of seeing
evil in anyone, and, indeed, her students often take advantage of her good
nature, the bishop also remains unconvinced.
And yet, Doubt never denies that there may be something to the accusations. There
may not be anything wrong with Sister Aloysius’s gut feeling or even her
aggressive pursuit for justice. What remains dubious are her motives if only
because they are so hard to read. Just how much of it is genuinely inspired by
her sense of duty and how much by fear of the wave sweeping the Vatican in the
mid-20th century? She concedes this much; she lied when trying to
coerce the Father into a confession, telling him she spoke to a nun from his
former parish about the circumstances behind his departure. But even here the
ethics are hazy. Had Father Flynn been truly innocent, her rationale goes, He
wouldn’t have reason to fear the even if he believed the lie to be true. In
context it does appear as if she is rationalizing an unsporting trick, but it
might be important to remember that tactics of this nature are not unheard of
among law and military officials in getting to the truth. If it’s true, as she
says, that Sister Aloysius’s main concern is removing a pedophile from the
school, she can be justified in obtaining evidence by any means necessary. The
difference in her case is not only that her reasons are ambiguous but that her
idea of the truth is preordained, evidence be damned. What she truly believes
is the truth is something of a mystery, maybe even to her. But she knows what
she needs the truth to be.
Even for an actress as infallible as
Meryl Streep, Sister Aloysius presents a challenge. That her secret thoughts
vibrate so strongly is a testament to Streep’s unique understanding of dark
souls. Essentially, she delivers a performance within a performance. Sister
Aloysius’s dominance over St. Nicholas is, after all, a wall constructed to
keep out the progress she fears. It’s a wall that begins to slip, however, the
first instance being during a particularly heated exchange with Father Flynn
when the dreaded progress (represented by the priest) seems to be gaining the
upper hand. Her stern chilling diction melts into the nasal Bronx dialect it
shields. The frightening figure she constructed is for the first time exposed
as a mere defense mechanism and we can finally understand, if not excuse, her
behavior. The post-Vatican II world is as frightening to her as she is to the
parish she watches over. As rigidly as she enforces her code of conduct, Sister
Aloysius is herself a vulnerable human.
Not surprisingly, Father Flynn
maintains his innocence throughout and garners more support than his opponent.
Donald Miller certainly appreciates him. As the only African-American in a school
servicing Irish and Italian families (in the few brief scenes offering a view
of the community outside the parish walls the movie has the air of a Barry
Levinson nostalgia piece) and often the victim of bullying it’s not hard to
understand why he welcomes Father Flynn’s friendship.
This is what must have perturbed Daniel S.
Cutrara in his book Wicked Cinema: Sex
and Religion on Screen when he said of the film, “When the Flynn begins to
pay special attention to the only African-American boy in the school, he
becomes the target of Sister Aloysius’s investigation. Flynn likens the
investigation to a witch hunt that ruins careers, and the priest becomes an
object of sympathy for the audience. No abuse is shown on screen, so there
remains a reasonable doubt regarding Flynn’s behavior. Granted, innocent
priests can become the victims of false claims, which may be how some audience
members view Shanley’s character. However, at this stage of the Church’s
pedophilia scandal, as the extent of a global cover-up of endemic criminal
sexual activity is still being discovered, this film introduces doubt into the
discourse around the Church’s culpability.”
But those that believe Father Flynn
without question (and many in the audience will) are acting on wishful
thinking. We want the outreach toward the child to be honest and, to be sure,
for all we are shown in the film, it well may be. But the movie never allows us
to rule out the other sinister possibility.
As sincere as Father Flynn seems to be in
his concern for the boy, at times he appears close to crossing a line.
Suspicion first starts when Donald is called into the rectory, followed by a
sighting of the priest tossing the boy’s shirt into his locker. Flynn has an
explanation for this, but it’s never proven. A bigger question is why Donald
left the encounter looking disturbed and reeking of alcohol. The priest’s
account is that he caught Donald drinking wine from the altar and agreed to
cover it up fearing Donald would have to step down as an altar boy. Again,
though, this account can be neither corroborated nor negated.
In addition, Father Flynn’s occasional odd
behavior does his credibility no favors. His talks with the boys about personal
hygiene teeters often comes a little too close for comfort and in once instant
he is shown touching Donald in a way that would give one pause. Most damningly,
he comes close to what could be interpreted as a confession when he tells the
Sister that there are some things she can’t understand.
And yet, we want Father Flynn to be
innocent. He stands, at least ostensibly, for compassion and innovation. In
what is arguably his best performance, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Father
Flynn with a clear knowledge of his psyche and inner woes. He knows the truth
as Shanley wrote it (and Shanley shared his own answer about the priest’s guilt
with none other than the actors who took the role both on stage and screen),
but never leads the audience on one way or the other, leaving Father Flynn a
compelling enigma to the end. Was he a misunderstood of benevolence
representing the winds of change for the Catholic Church or a disturbed
pedophile with a deceiving mask of goodness? Could he also be both a
forward-thinking clergyman and a criminal? If we sympathize with him, as
Cutrara says the film wishes us to, our empathy stems from a distrust of Sister
Aloysius’s own intentions.
There is, however, a third reason, voiced
by Donald’s mother, played by Viola Davis in a breakthrough performance that
can only be described as a one scene wonder. She stands by the priest because
she likes what he stands for and the good it is doing to her son outweighs any
less savory aspects of his behavior. Donald is a lonely, hurting boy, Mrs.
Miller reminds Sister Aloysius during an intense confrontation. His lack of
friends and an abusive father leave Father Flynn as the only person he can
trust. Why Flynn is interested in her son is not as important to her as the end
result; someone is looking out for her son. Even if the nun’s allegations are
true, Mrs. Miller argues, are they worth bringing down her son’s only
benefactor? By Sister Aloysius’s own admission in the final, Donald certainly
didn’t think so.
Doubt is one of those
movies that brings out the best in its cast because it features characters that
only the best can play well. Its best moments involve the cast playing off each
other in a war of ideology. Streep and Hoffman take the best approach by never
saying what their characters are thinking having them arrive to their point of
eruption slowly and calmly at first. Sister Aloysius’s first confrontation of
Flynn starts out amicably enough discussing the year’s Christmas pageant. It’s
clear from the nun’s facial signs of repressed aggression that she is luring
him into a trap, like a cat offering a mouse a sense of safety before it
pounces. The discussion becomes increasingly hostile as disagreement arises
between the two over the inclusion of secular songs in the show. Tension keeps
rising until both the nun and the priest are at each other’s throats. The
accusation is never explicitly stated, but by then Father Flynn understands his
opponent well enough to know what her goal is, and it was never about Christmas
songs.
Equally fascinating is Mrs. Miller’s talk
with Sister Aloysius, completely dominated by Viola Davis’s tour de force
performance. Streep, however, also does something amazing, bringing forth a
revealing new layer to Sister Aloysius. She is, at heart, a frightened woman of
the old ways helpless when set against modern times (represented this time by
Mrs. Miller). For the first time, Sister Aloysius realizes how truly alone she
is in her struggle against modernity.
John Patrick Shanley’s work in cinema is
not extensive, his greatest credit was penning Moonstruck, but his direction and script in Doubt makes a strong case for greater involvement of authors in stage
to screen adaptations. None of the provocative challenges of his play are lost
in the translation and the film captures the moral complexities of his work.
Everything went right, though, including the assembly of a superb cast capable
of handling the weight and courage of his material, as a group they make Doubt one of the best films of 2008. Shanley even demonstrates a mastery of camera
work, capturing the coldness of St. Nicolas as it contrasts with the close-knit
neighborhood in the Bronx where it sits like a mysterious temple where progress
has come to a halt; the perfect place for dark secrets to remain hidden within
stone walls.
