Rating of
4/4
Strongest cast of the year
patjohnson76 - wrote on 12/14/08
You probably won't find a better cast than what you get with Doubt. Based on a play from one of today's best playwrights, Doubt traces a possible inappropriate relationship between a priest and child. Set against the backdrop of the early 60s, an underlying battle exists between the progressive Fr. Flynn (Hoffman) and the traditional Sr. Aloysius (Streep), who makes choices that challenge the hierarchy of the Catholic church. The cast also includes the naive Sr. James (Adams) and the child-in-question's mother, played in movie-stealing fashion by Viola Davis, who makes her few minutes in the film incredible.
While all are cast in great roles, it is Streep who turns in one of her strongest performances, as she attempts to prove her suspicions as the dominating principal. Some will look at her performance as a caricature, but those of us who attended Catholic school and had nuns for principals, I can safely say she inspires the fear in students that we felt as children.
Everything leads up to a showdown between Flynn and Aloysius, and the film is ambiguous enough to let you draw your own conclusions about who's right (something, I'm sure, will annoy some viewers who will expect everything to be spelled out for them). There are some powerful scenes here, and it's one of the few films of the year that I would classify as art rather than mainstream entertainment.
