Doubt - Movie Review and Synopsis

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

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Category: Movies. Tags: Alice Drummond, Amy Adams, Drama, John Patrick Shanley, Meryl Streep, Mystery, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Viola Davis.

Doubt It’s 1964, St. Nicholas in the Bronx. A charismatic priest, Father Flynn, is trying to upend the schools’ strict customs, which have long been fiercely guarded by Sister Aloysius Beauvier, the iron-gloved Principal who believes in the power of fear and discipline. The winds of political change are sweeping through the community, and indeed, the school has just accepted its first black student, Donald Miller. But when Sister James, a hopeful innocent, shares with Sister Aloysius her guilt-inducing suspicion that Father Flynn is paying too much personal attention to Donald, Sister Aloysius sets off on a personal crusade to unearth the truth and to expunge Flynn from the school. Now, without a shard of proof besides her moral certainty, Sister Aloysius locks into a battle of wills with Father Flynn which threatens to tear apart the community with irrevocable consequence.

John Patrick Shanley adapts and directs the film version of his Broadway play, which can boast of the fifth-longest run in history. Meanwhile, producer Scott Rudin, who divorced himself from The Reader after a bust-up with Harvey Weinstein, is still in good shape to vie for some best-picture awards, since the buzz temperature here is climbing as December draws near. Look for Streep to extend her lead in the number of total Best Actress nominations, for Hoffman to rack up another nod (one of possibly two if Synecdoche, New York lives up to its avant-garde promise), and for Adams to probably walk away with her first Oscar. Then there’s the presence of Viola Davis, who has turned more than one critic’s head with her performance as the mother of the student who may or may not have fallen under the influence of Hoffman’s Father Brendan Flynn.

Rated PG-13 for thematic material.