Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Doubt


Doubt:  Used as a noun it means uncertainty; as a verb it means to question, to hesitate to believe, or to distrust.  All usages apply in this namesake film.

Two cinema greats, Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, engage in a complex war of wills that involves suspicion and the challenging and abuse of authority.  Doubt depicts how their individual belief systems, personalities and tenacity shape and filter their interaction with each other within the early '60s strict-but-changing confines of the fiercely hierarchical Roman Catholic Church.  A third character's related, but unimaginable, belief eventually implodes within this conflict.

Doubt contains brilliant dialogue, but austere sets, which reflect its stage-play origin and its occurrence within a Catholic school.  Streep plays the Catholic school principal, an authoritarian nun who suspects school-associated priest Hoffman of sexual abuse of a student.  Streep's character verbally engages the priest in continual thrust and parry, challenging his manner of student interaction and hoping to provoke him into self-incrimination.  Amy Adams plays a youthful, uncertain nun who is Streep's sounding board.

We who enjoy stage plays appreciate minimal settings and the power of dialogue, but the sparse and bleak surroundings in this film, while appropriate to the story, may present a challenge for some movie fans.

I have one criticism, and it concerns the portrayal of Streep's character as unrelentingly cold, self-righteous and arrogant.  For me, the film would have been more effective had it accorded her slightly more warmth and, yes, doubt.   However, nuns like this did exist, and I know this from long-ago personal experience. The playwright, John Patrick Shanley, adapted his play for the screen and directed the film, so I must assume the characterization was deliberate. 

Doubt is provocative, disturbing and challenging.  It will stay with you long after the ending, which I found satisfying but without mystery or ambiguity, unlike others who've seen it.

For those who enjoyed it, or have an interest in the mysteries of faith, I suggest another movie, Agnes of God, adapted for the screen by John Pielmeier from his play about a religious concept and a crime within a remote Quebec convent.  It features Jane Fonda as a court-appointed psychiatrist; Anne Bancroft as Mother Superior of the cloistered order; and Meg Tilly as Agnes, a devout young nun. 

The intense verbal sparring between Fonda's character and the Mother Superior is intellectually and religiously challenging.  It causes the logical, skeptical mind to question and wonder: "If we believe it happened once, why not again?"  I've pondered and searched for the conclusion the playwright intended us to reach, but it remains beyond my grasp, even after all these years and many repeat viewings.  Perhaps this was his intention.  Doubt and logic vs. faith.

Directed by Norman Jewison, Agnes of God is riveting.  Superb in acting, story-telling and cinematography, this 1985 film is honest, fair, provocative and powerful in its presentation of suspicion and doubt.