starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis
written and directed by John Patrick Shanley
Having read the play this movie is based on a few years ago and greatly enjoying it, this was my most anticipated movie of the holiday season. Unfortunately (as seen previously in my Slumdog Millionaire review), high expectations don't always yield the best results. And Doubt was no exception.
It's the 1960s and Father Flynn (Hoffman) is trying all he can to keep his parish (which is adjacent to a Catholic school) "with the times," so to speak, providing intriguing sermons for the adults and being down to earth with the students. This doesn't necessarily sit well with Sister Aloysius (Streep) who is none too fond of Flynn. When young Sister James (Adams) has a tiny suspicion of Flynn sexually abusing the school's only black student, Aloysius takes the chance and runs with it in order to get Flynn out of the parish...whether or not the allegations are true doesn't seem to matter.
It's an incredibly simple story. That's it. As a play, there were only four characters (the supposed victim's mother played by Davis appears in only one critical scene). As a play, I would've imagined this thing would've worked.
As a movie, not so much, and I think that mostly has to do with Shanley's direction and additions to his script (he also wrote the original play). There were incredibly odd shots -- at crooked angles, looking upwards or downwards onto the actors...really just stupid shots. I found myself laughing at some of them. As for the script add-ons, they really just made Streep's character almost a joke...at the beginning of the film, her character almost seemed like she was in a comedy when she was interacting with the children in her school.
That being said, the acting in this thing was mostly top-notch, my favorite being Amy Adams. Adams has the "innocent" role down pat, after a star-making turn in Enchanted, but she was great here. Viola Davis was also excellent in her one powerful scene. Hoffman was serviceable, but he was nothing to write home about. And as for Streep...it was a hoot to watch her, but I couldn't help but think that her portrayal was all over the place. It ran the gamut from humorous to downright nasty and she never really found the right balance to me.
No doubt (no pun intended there) that my experience was slightly hampered due to some poor sound issues throughout the movie (making it seem as if I was hearing things from behind a closed door), but I think I'd much rather see this as a play rather than as a movie. However, despite the grade I'm giving it below, it was an interesting movie...one that I would definitely recommend seeing (on dvd).
The RyMickey Rating: C
To me, those shots were "trying too hard" or something...there was a shot or two at the beginning that were fine, but by the end, it was like "how can I make this look as ominous as possible...hmm...let me put the camera at a weird angle and maybe that'll help..."
ReplyDeleteThere was even some girl in the theater who, during one of the shots held up her hands at a crooked angle and said to her friend, "What's up with that shot?"