I just don't understand the appeal or hype

To limit the risk of accidental plagiarism, I tend only to read reviews of the same product after I finish mine; however, I do a gloss of what is already there (if there seems to be something that is exactly what I would write, I usually decide not to write). I noticed something that makes me question my opinion a bit. Among the VH reviews, everyone liked Doubt. It isn’t that I didn’t “like” the film, just that I didn’t see anything special enough to recommend it.

The film starts with Father Flynn giving a sermon on doubt which, as much as anything really, is more about loneliness. His premise is that, shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy, people were held together out of a shared sense of agony, but that some were excluded from this society of woe, and society in general.

Father Flynn is the primary priest for St. Nicholas church and school. It’s in a working-class Irish-Italian neighborhood in The Bronx. The school’s principal is Sister Aloysius, a very old-school nun seemingly so obsessed with doctrine and tradition that she doesn’t allow students to write with ballpoint pens because they encourage lazy penmanship. Along with keeping a stereotypical eagle eye on the students, she keeps a cold but careful eye on the half a dozen other sisters attached to the school, chief among them is Sister James.

Sister James is a young nun, but still more doctrinaire than not. She teaches 8th grade, a year that generally sees students hit puberty, meaning a young nun having to deal with the emergence and intensity of adolescent sexuality. Sexuality and its expression are what ultimately drive the film.

Donald Miller is the only black student in the school. Since he is largely protected by Father Flynn, he seldom sees any bullying. The question, though, is whether there is a price for this protection. Sister James brings the initial concern to Sister Aloysius who then confronts Father Flynn with her suspicions.

Doubt contains enough mystery about it that I shouldn’t cover any more of the plot. Enough time has passed from the two-to-three year period of Catholic priest pedophilia being a collective open wound that less salacious stories can be told and not be considered opportunistic. All the same, does Doubt bring anything new or interesting to the multitude of movies about a rigid Catholic school in general or a potentially abusive priest in specific? Nope.

The film has three main characters and all of them are (in an image I use unfortunately often) right off the b-grade stock character shelf. Father Flynn is the pudgy, pale priest filled with love and kindness, and perhaps a bit of eponymous doubt. Sister James is the young and weak idealist teacher wanting to make a difference but is stymied by her timidity so she bows almost without question to any figure of authority. Sister Aloysius is the tough old crone nun; the only difference between her and the stereotypical nuns anciennes that Catholic school survivors talk about is that she doesn’t carry a ruler.

The three principles cover the gamut of good actors. Amy Adams, Sister James, is likely to have a strong career given the wide range of roles she has played and played well. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Father Flynn, is one of the “actors of a generation” putting him along-side Kevin Spacey and Tommy Lee Jones (each man generally takes parts that fit his style so each man is top notch for his character set—very little overlap); there are other generational actors and we all have our favorites here—but for now . . . Meryl Streep, Sister Aloysius, is ne plus ultra; I think even people who are not fond of her or see her as overrated can mostly agree on her impact if nothing else.

Sister James is a very flat character. Her moments of spine and deference are textbook for a noviate trying to bring something fresh to a stodgy and staid culture. She is very easily cowed when faced with any amount of authority. An actor of Ms. Adams’s abilities (and expense) need not have been used. Father Flynn is the smiling affable Irish guy, seen one seen them all pudgy, pale priest. Mr. Hoffmann did himself a disservice, I think by taking such a simplistic role. His moment and a half of indignation is almost embarrassing in its high-school drama class presentation—he would also be a bit costly.

Ms. Streep though . . . I cannot understand why she would want to play so limiting a character and do it badly.

It could be that I was simply expecting more of such a heavyweight cast. I understand that one of the biggest challenges for an actor is to take on such a rigidly defined character (I mean this in general and not just specific to this film). You can really prove your talent if you can pull it off—the same can be said for a singer going a capella and with no monitors or a knitter who can make a sweater with only knit stitches without flaw. I just think they failed. They either chose badly, were not allowed either by script or director to expand the character’s range, or simply did not bring their A game to a C movie.

Also, the story is weak. Again, does Doubt bring anything new to the priest\child abuse or teacher\child abuse storyline? It does not. Perhaps in the same way of the stellar actors trying to create something sublime out of stock characters, the story might be trying in its constipated way to push the bounds of what has become a modern morality play. If so, it does not succeed. It is boring and I am no more invested in it than I am any of the characters.

Before I get to the final coffin nail, I need to present an alternate possibility (though admittedly a straw-man). Doubt started its life as a play. A play is preciously intimate and it is possible for an actor in a stereotypical role to stand out because of this intimacy. And a story containing the binary ambiguity in Doubt can work on a stage. The problem is that this sort of intimacy is totally lacking in a film. There is an additional problem specific to this film. John Patrick Shanley wrote and directed the movie based on his own play. It is possible for someone in that position to have the perspective allowing for adjusting a stage play to the screen and still retain what power it had live. While possible, it didn’t happen here.

The reason I bring up the play at all, though, is the ham-fisted symbols in the film. A foul wind creating the metaphor of a world in disorder is as old as time. It can work on stage because it is difficult to present that sort of external condition in so limited a space. On screen, though, it is silly. The same thing happens with a light bulb that keeps blowing out above Sister Aloysius’s desk—when there is an unorthodox idea in her office, the light blows. I sat watching it thinking “you have got to be kidding me!”

Finally, though, I just didn’t care. Donald Miller, the potential abuse victim. is a metaphor, not a person, so there is nothing solid for sympathy to ride on. Father Flynn may be a terribly wronged man, but there is nothing tragic or sympathetic about him to make me give a rip. Each sister faces moments of pathos but they are quickly dispensed with except for one. Like the heavy-handed symbolism, the final pathos is not only hackneyed, it is out of place so badly that it weakens an already flat character to caricature.

Recommended:
No