Doubt

Doubt (****)

Doubt is an excellent movie; a movie deceptively simple in that it contains just a few main characters and tells a simple story that takes place over the course of just a few days, but is in fact incredibly deep in terms of the discussion that can stem outwardly from it. The movie takes place just about entirely within the confines of a Catholic church and school, but I don't think the movie is necessarily "about" Catholicism or organized religion specifically. You certainly can discuss the movie's portrayal of the rigorous discipline and subservience commanded by how Catholicism is structured, and the movie may have a more personal meaning for people who grew up Catholic, but I think--as its one word title suggests--the overlying themes of the movie are much more universal and fundamental. The movie is about relationships, how people can develop trust and mistrust in others, and how people come to deal with feelings of..... (wait for it).... doubt.

The movie opens with a church service presided over by Father Brendan Flynn, played excellently by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who is gradually establishing himself as one of the best character actors of his generation. He sets up the movie of the film by giving a sermon about.... (wait for it)..... doubt. His basic point being that people should turn to God when they're in doubt, be it about something private or something collective, like America's doubt after the Kennedy assassination, which happened in the past year of when the movie is set. During the sermon we meet Sister Aloysius (Merryl Streep), the living embodiment of the word disciplinarian, who walks up and down the aisles smacking the hell out of kids who aren't paying attention and telling them to sit up straight. She is the headmaster of the Catholic school, demanding of order and conformity from the students, and fiercely traditionalist in her beliefs about the church.

This traditionalism puts her at odds with Father Flynn, who is much more relaxed in his demeanor and in his associations with the congregation and the students at the school. He speaks in a very quaint and low-key fashion which would be commonplace in many churches today, but nigh unheard of amongst dogmaticness of the 1960s Catholic Church. During one sermon he speaks as a caricature of an old Irish priest, and even comes down amongst the congregation in the middle of a service at one important point. Flynn also wants to do things like allow secular songs in the Christmas pageant to "update" the church's image (even the ballad of the pagan hellspawn that is "Frosty the Snowman"). Really all you need to know about the relationship between Aloysius and Flynn is summarized in one scene in Aloysius's office in which she offers Flynn a cup of tea and he asks for three spoons of sugar. Aloysius seems taken aback by the very idea of anyone wanting anything to be that sweet, and then has to frantically hunt around in her desk drawers to actually find a packet of sugar.

Some time after the sermon, Aloysius announces while eating dinner with the other nuns in the church that she thinks Father Flynn's sermon on doubt must have been targeted at someone specifically. Perhaps, even, at himself. Her suspicions seem to be validated, when Sister Jones (Amy Adams), a young teacher at the school who is good-hearted but novice to the point of being very nervous (Aloysius would say naive) in everything she does, believes she smells alcohol on the breath of her student Donald Miller after he returns from a private meeting in the rectory with Father Flynn. Reluctant at first, Sister Jones eventually reveals this to Sister Aloysius, who immediately launches a crusade against Father Flynn, believing him to have molested, or otherwise mistreated Donald, and believing that other similar incidents have occurred with Flynn at other churches which have been covered up. Is Aloysius altruistically protecting a child who she truly believes is being horribly abused? Or is this the ultimate control-freak wrestling control of her church in a way that circumvents its usual hierarchy? Such is the question that looms over the film.

Donald Miller is the lone black student at the school, occupied predominately by deep-rooted Irish and Italian Catholic families. Flynn's explanation is that the boy is harassed by his fellow classmates (this is indeed true, as we see him get "booked" in the hallway in one scene), and that his close relationship with the boy is close because Donald has no other real friends and looks up to him as a mentor and father figure. His explanation for the alcohol is that Donald, an alter boy, stole some communion wine. Flynn said he wanted to handle the matter privately with Donald, because being an alter boy seemed to be one of Donald's few true pleasures at the school and so Flynn was attempting to give him a pass. Donald confirms this story. Sister Jones--who is much more of Father Flynn's mindset when it comes to the question of whether their church should abandon the rigidity of traditional Catholicism--immediately accepts Flynn's explanation, but Aloysius still doubts him, and points out (quite correctly) that a man in Flynn's position could easily orchestrate a cover-up for his alleged abuse. The situation is further muddled when Aloysius speaks with Donald's mother, and realizes that Father Flynn has represented an escape from the very much certain physical abuse carried out by Donald's father. The back-and-forth battle of wits between the central triangle of characters continues for the rest of the movie.

Simply because of their personalities, while watching the movie I wanted to immediately treat Flynn as the hero of the movie, who has to struggle against the oppression of the cold-hearted, manipulated villain in the form of Aloysius. I suspect I'm far from alone in this, even though there's no solid evidence presented that Flynn's story is in fact the correct one and thus that he's innocent. No one really wants Aloysius to be right, because Father Flynn seems like a very jovial person you can get along with, whereas Aloysius evokes memories of everyone's most despised authority figure. Futhermore, we don't want Sister Jones to be wrong about Father Flynn, because we feel like if Flynn is removed from the picture, Aloysius will crush Sister Jones's fragile, youthful spirit and she'll become Aloysius's subservient drone, ready to carry on her legacy of obsessing over posture and the use of ballpoint pens at the school. The film does a lot to explore how first impressions and personal biases can get in the way of truth.

As I mentioned, there are no real definitive answers in Doubt. While there is a definite ending in terms of the fate of Father Flynn, the question of his actual guilt is left completely open. There are a lot of little subtleties throughout the film, though, which compel you to rewatch the movie and open up new avenues of discussion about it. There's a scene where Flynn enters a room and looks up at a stained glass window which is halfway up the staircase to the next floor. Why is he looking there? Is he looking for forgiveness from God, thus making it a tacit admission of his guilt? In the shot, we the bars from the staircase between Flynn and the window. In old noir movies, vertical bars were often used as symbolic prison bars. Is Flynn "imprisoned" and unable to reach out to God because of the secret he's keeping? There are all sorts of examples like this in the film which can be debated endlessly. The only real complaint I have about an otherwise spectacular movie, is Aloysius's last line, which I won't reveal except to say that, unlike the rest of the movie, its completely overt and in your face. It reminds me of the opera episode of "Futurama" where the Robot Devil confronts Fry over his opera lyrics: "Stupider?! You can't just have your characters go around announcing how they feel! That makes me feel angry!" This, however, barely hurt my enjoyment of the film, and I really only mention it because so much of the rest of it was so good. This is a great movie, and an underrated one, given that it seems like overall consensus puts it sort of in the second tier of movies of the year behind some others.