Miramax

Doubt is a case of art imitating art imitating life. John Patrick Shanley based the character of Sister James on a real sister that he knew as a child. He grew up attending Catholic school, and Sister James was one of the nuns he knew during that experience. While the character was based on something real, the events were not. He took this familiar character and developed the fictional story of Doubt around her. This story became a play. W hen it came to adapting the successful play into a movie, John Patrick Shanley took on the job nearly singlehandedly. Now, I’m not a huge fan of these one man writer, director, producer affairs. The infliction of a single voice on a film often results in a movie that plays too much like an inside joke. Nothing is more tedious to watch than a person laughing at their own jokes. So, I went into Doubt expecting that recipe for disaster. Much to my surprise, I discovered that there really are rare exceptions to any rule. Doubt is that rare exception, without a doubt.

Meryl Streep is Sister Aloysius. She is a very conservative sister who can’t let go of the strict traditions of the past. She has taken a strong disliking to the new parish priest, Father Flynn. Flynn is a progressive priest who embraces the new changes the Church has undergone under the recent Second Vatican Council. The film is set in the early 1960’s shortly after the Pope John XXXIII’s proclamation. She takes exception to the fact that he writes with a ball point pen, takes sugar in his tea, and likes Frosty the Snowman, which she believes promotes such ideas as witchcraft to children. She admonishes the nuns under her supervision to watch the priest for anything suspicious. When young Sister James (Adams) calls a particular incident to her attention, she latches on to the information in an effort to bring down the priest. It appears that Father Flynn has taken a young boy under his wing. The boy, Donald Miller (Foster) is the Catholic school’s first black student and not the most welcome young lad. Father Flynn’s special attention is at first interpreted by Sister James as suspicious when Donald returns to her class from a conference with the priest acting considerably distraught. Now Sister Aloysius suspects the boy was molested. She confronts the priest and engages in a brutal campaign to have him exposed, or at least removed from the parish. All the while Sister James becomes more and more convinced she has misjudged the situation and set in motion a terrible injustice that she is now powerless to contain. Her doubt wears heavily on her soul.