* Movie Review - Doubt
You probably know by now that when Doubt was in the theaters, if you were looking for a light hearted movie this was a movie to skip. Doubt is a thinking person’s movie. It is set in a strict urban Catholic school. The time is 1964, but it could be almost anytime. President Kennedy is dead, and the civil rights movement has resulted in the enrollment of the first black student in the Italian-Irish parish school. The student, Donald Miller (Joseph Foster II), serves as the pivot around which four characters fight with words, each trying to protect their right, not to have doubts about one another, but to have certainties. Each will lose something and Donald may lose the most.
Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman ), the parish priest, is an open-minded and forward thinking new spirit. He wears his fingernails long, he talks to the boys about dating, and he is sensitive to newcomer Donald, the altar boy who tells him he wants to be a priest. Flynn is destined to clash with Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) the principal of the school. Sister Aloysius is a rigid and fear-inspiring principal who rules by holding tight to the reigns of power. Flynn is a threat to her ways of ruling and she must get rid of the progressive and popular parish priest. Sister James (Amy Adams) is the true moral center of the story. She initially suspects some sort of impropriety between Father Flynn and his pupil Donald but she almost immediately comes to regret her decision to confide in Sister Aloysius. The last player is Donald’s mother who is approached by Sister Aloysius and her certainty of the unnatural act between Father Flynn and her son. After listening to the implications of what the Sister is suggesting, Donald’s mothers response is shattering.
Color in this movie is hard to find. Sister Aloysius is a black clad harpy who is totally humorless and inhabits a world where everything is black or white, right or wrong. There are no grey areas and therefore no room for doubt. She understands that the institution she rules will so find her obsolete. Sister James, who naively started the ball rolling in the first place, is young and sweet natured and has decided that she doesn’t want to become the woman she originally chose as her mentor. Father Flynn is personable, funny and caring about all his pupils and yet he has been in three parishes in not so many years. Does he refuse to defend himself because he is protecting Donald or does Sister Aloysius, armed only with her certainty have real reason to persecute the only hope for the sane future of the school?
Certainty vs. truth? -A priest whose sin is great, but not greater than the sin of society? – A mother whose love for her son surpasses any judgment on earth? Doubt is a great movie and is now out on DVD and at the Yocum Library. Doubt can be checked out at the circulation desk for a seven-day period.
*DVD Cover from Amazon.com
