Reel Reflections

The Shadow of a Doubt

A Film Review 

David Greiser

A while ago I made my usual year-end list of movies to see over the Christmas holiday. The end of the year always promises a rash of good movies, as directors and distributors jockey for attention from critics, with the Academy Award nominations just around the corner. Near the top of my list of must-sees this year was a little gem simply called “Doubt.”

“Doubt” originated as a play from the pen of the highly respected playwright John Patrick Shanley, who also created the script for “Moonstruck.” The play version of “Doubt” garnered a Pulitzer Prize in 2004. It is not likely to get the same level of attention from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, which historically has passed over most plays that are transformed into films (A notable exception would be the 1985 Best Picture winner, “Amadeus”).

As a rule, plays that become films can be tedious and talky on the big screen. Though “Doubt” is certainly longer on talk than on action, the awards committee may want to take a second look at it anyway. With its timely subject, stellar cast, and tightly crafted writing, “Doubt” keeps you thinking, feeling, deciding and, yes, doubting, from beginning to end.

The story unfolds in 1964, at St. Nicholas’ Church and Parish School in the Bronx. The school is housed in one of those aging, airless buildings in which you smell the mixture of chalk dust, wood finish, and the hint of too many chili-con-carne lunches as soon as you walk through the door. There is controversy, too, in the air—controversy brought on by the early upheavals of Vatican II.

St. Nicholas’ School is ruled by the severe, humorless Sister Aloysius (played by a black-habited Meryl Streep). Sister Aloysius shuns all forms of change, right down to the innovation of ballpoint pens in her school (“Penmanship is dying all over the country!”) She has taken up a power struggle with the popular and progressive, Vatican II-spouting new priest of the parish, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Though initially deferential to the new Father, Sister Aloysius is clearly not accustomed to having her traditional authority over the school questioned.

Her latest protégé is Sister James, a naive first year teacher (played by a wide-eyed Amy Adams) who becomes an unwitting lamb caught between experienced wolves. Sister James believes in the goodness of her students, a concept Sister Aloysius is eager to expunge.

In one scene, Sister Aloysius instructs Sister James to hang a portrait of the Holy Father on the blackboard. When Sister James objects that it is not a picture of the current pope, Sister Aloysius sputters, “What difference does it make?! When you look at the glass, you can see a reflection of what the students are doing at their seats!” For Sister Aloysius, even the youngest are presumed guilty until proven innocent.

Sister James confides to Sister Aloysius that she suspects Father Flynn of having a sexually abusive relationship with Donald Miller—an eighth grader who happens to be the school’s first African-American student. Sister James smells alcohol on Donald’s breath following a private meeting with Father Flynn in the rectory.

Some of the best scenes in the movie follow this accusation. In one, Sister Aloysius lures Father Flynn to her office under the pretext of discussing the school Christmas pageant. When Father Flynn surmises that the conversation is really about his relationship with one of the students, he rises slowly from the principal’s desk where he has been sitting, and Sister Aloysius takes his place.

From then on, Sister Aloysius controls the conversation. The interrogation is emotionally taut, employing close-ups and the extensive dramatic range of two of the best film actors working today.

A second powerful scene involves a conversation between Sister Aloysius and Donald Miller’s mother (played by Viola Davis). Mrs. Miller fears that her son will be expelled from school, and she appeals to Sister Aloysius to drop her investigation. Although she is only on screen for one scene, Viola Miller’s performance as the mother in an impossible situation may be the most stunning in the whole film. See it for yourself and decide.

Is Father Flynn guilty of sexual abuse? “Doubt” leaves us doubting. Or maybe not. I saw this film with two other persons, and the conversation afterward was fascinating and vigorous. One person was sure the priest was guilty. Another was certain he was not. The third was uncertain. Since then, I’ve spoken to others who saw the film and were equally certain that they knew “the truth” about what actually happened.

Such is the mark of good writing about a sensitive contemporary subject. “Doubt” takes us into a world forty years removed from our own, yet it does so in a way that reveals how little both the world and the church have truly changed in the interim. The clothing may have been modernized and the Mass given a facelift. But the larger questions of power and accountability need answering, not only in the Catholic Church but the whole Christian church. About that nature of challenge, “Doubt” leaves us little doubt at all.

—Dave Greiser directs the Pastoral Ministries Program and teaches in the Bible and Ministry Department at Hesston College, in Hesston, Kansas.