Everyone Has "Doubt"

The film "Doubt" begins with a sermon by Father Flynn, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, in which he says that although our doubt and fear may make us feel isolated, it is really what bonds us all. The mere idea of doubt greatly troubles Sister Aloysius, played by Meryl Streep, and leads to suspicions, questions, and ultimately the squaring off of two of our greatest actors. Both are playing complex characters - we like the one and hate the other, but then we find that nothing is so simple. Amy Adams plays a young nun who would like nothing better than to reduce everything to black and white - but this story is full of gray, right down to the cinematography. The director gets a bit heavy-handed with metaphors (a literal cat-and-mouse game, lights that won't stay lit, an ill wind), but it is a very literary film, developed from his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play by John Patrick Shanley. The dialogue is crackling. In the end, we are left with suspicions, questions, and amazement at the extraordinary actors. Four scenes alone are like acting tutorials - Streep and Hoffman's two confrontations, Hoffman's scene with Amy Adams, and Streep's scene with Viola Davis, who plays the mother of a student at the Catholic school so brilliantly that she is nominated for both Golden Globe and SAG awards, even though her screen time is minimal. Ultimately, we all have to live with doubt in some form, but there's no doubt, this film is worth seeing for the performances alone.