Oh, but it is [i]also[/i] "a movie about a hot button topic" (unless it's changed a lot more from the play than it seems to have, judging by the reviews so far) -- just not the obvious one.

Among various misguided musings, elsewhere on the net, about whether Catholic viewers will be offended by [i]Doubt[/i]'s portrayal of a priest as a (possible) child-molester, I've yet to see anyone raise an alarm about the degree to which the play (and, I assume, the film) champions, well, doubt.

Shanley all but forces the question of whether faith itself -- i.e., steadfast certainty about things for which there is no definite empirical evidence -- is an acceptable basis for responsible adult behavior. In a country whose spiritual life (and to a frightening degree, its political life as well) has been dominated, for the past eight years, by religious hysteria on the Right punctuated by occasional, scarcely-less-hysterical salvos of atheism from the Left (see [i]Religulous[/i], [i]God Is Not Great[/i], etc.), I'd say Shanley is pushing a rather hot button indeed.

It's to his credit -- I think? -- that [i]Doubt[/i] manages to position itself above the millennial fracas -- if indeed it really does so. (Like much else about the play, it's hard to be entirely sure, and may depend on who's watching). But in the current climate, these questions are hardly such existential abstractions as they might at first appear (or as we might wish). If [i]Doubt[/i] is, as the play's subtitle would have it, "a parable," it is arguably quite a pointed one.

A very thoughtful reaction. Though I'd probably argue that the last thing "Religulous" and "God is Not Great" promulgate is doubt in the end -- they're really about certitude, aren't they? I.e., the certitude that religion is merely a synonym for unfounded superstition.

Incidentally, the one thing I expect is actually less effective than the play is that Shanley dramatizes things that were only recounted onstage, which in some ways makes them more concrete, and is therefore at odds with the ambivalence he seeks to sow.

Thanks for adding so much to the piece.

Thanks for the great review Ray. My anticipation level for this film has just buried the needle. My main concern is how it stacks up to the brilliant Broadway production. Did you get to see Cherry Jones in the role? It was a titanic performance-can a character and actress perfectly embody an entire philosophic worldview? Cherry Jones did. I hear almost every line delivery in my head to this day. This kind of merging with actor and role doesn't happen every day. A suitable comparison would be Brando and The Godfather, so intertwined is my memory of Ms. Jones and her Sister Aloysius. I fear that the indelible impression she left on me might mar my enjoyment of Meryl, whom I adore. Your reservations about Hoffman are exactly what I feared as well; the show dramatic momentum is entirely predicated on the audiences shifting allegiances between it's two main characters. Hoffman might seem too suspicious from the start, with his husky build, tendency to mush-mouthed diction and (in a more unfair burden) history in sexually troubled roles. But I'll reserve opinion on them all until I see the picture. As for Viola Davis, anyone who saw her Tony winning turn in August Wilson's "King Hedley" knows that she is one of America's greatest undiscovered talents.

P.S.-I just re-read all the comments on your Sweeney Todd review from a year ago and I'll be damned if that is not the most amazing, intelligent and enlightening discussion of Sondheim's seminal musical in the whole of the internet! What got into everyone?

Bobofag: In what way exactly are Hoffman's "husky build [and] mush-mouthed diction" a LESS unfair burden than his prior film roles, in terms of pegging his character in "Doubt" as a likely pedophile?

You're far from the first to raise this point, but it still astounds me that so many otherwise intelligent people seem ready to discuss the film (or the play), with a perfectly straight face, in terms of whether the actor "looks like a child-molester," whatever that may mean. (Ray's "humid and fulsome" at least gives the stereotype some decorative shading, though I'm still not quite sure what he's referring to when he cites Hoffman's "capacity" - for what? - as a potential mitigating factor).

Hoffman's past resume of "sexually troubled roles" may indeed be an unfair basis on which to make assumptions about his character in "Doubt," but it's at least vaguely understandable that one might unconsciously do so. On the other hand, for anyone who would seriously entertain the idea that Hoffman's weight and vocal timbre are legitimate indicators of his character's guilt or innocence, the phrase "morally obtuse" seems rather too mild. This isn't a Very Special Episode of "Different Strokes," folks, and even if Hoffman were the spitting image of Gordon Jump, it would be laughably irrelevant to any remotely serious consideration of the story Shanley is telling.

Yes, I understand that movies are a visual medium, and that physical "types" are a built-in part of its vocabulary -- particularly in the commercial arena. And yes, I suppose we might as well acknowledge our prejudices before allowing Shanley his chance to confound them. But there are prejudices and then there are prejudices: if movie audiences really do approach "Doubt" in as stupid and Pavlovian a frame of mind as some comments I've read about Hoffman's ineffable personal "creepiness" would suggest ("creepy" being just one of many blunter terms that have circled around his casting in this role), then the movie -- even if it's not great -- really is too good for us. (And I'd shudder to even imagine the condition of the jury system in this country).

Meanwhile, we laugh condescendingly -- or cringe in horror -- at Sr. Aloysius for inferring F. Flynn's guilt from his long fingernails and his fondness for ballpoint pens and secular Christmas carols, and applaud Sr. James for calling her out on it. Are we really, as a culture, this dumb and self-satisfied?

[/soapbox], not intended as any kind of attack on you guys, or on the film. And re: the "Sweeney" thread from last year, you're right, Bobo: it was lovely indeed.

Ray: It may not have come through properly, but I was already positing "Religulous" and "God Is Not Great" as left-wing parallels to religious-right hysteria, roughly equivalent to it in their stubborn certainties; *not* as countervailing expressions of freethinking "doubt"... exactly as you say in your response. So, we agree.

Likewise about the translation of the play into more literal, naturalistic film terms. I actually don't know that it categorically works against Shanley's studied ambiguity -- true "realism," rigorously pursued, might easily muddy the waters more, not less -- but it could point up the artificiality of his construction, to somewhat distracting effect. Now that we're allowed to see Donald onscreen, does it not become a bit harder to swallow the writer's calculated refusal to let the boy speak for himself about what did or did not happen in the rectory?

Littering the film with off-kilter "Dutch" camera angles seems like a somewhat wan attempt to make room, amidst all that "concrete" detail, for the play's spare, elegant schematism; but perhaps Shanley should have reworked the piece more radically. Underneath the play's seductive language, its most provocative tenet may be that words -- even when they're as nuanced and precise as those of Shanley and his characters -- can only ever approach the truth obliquely, and often at too treacherous a distance to do much good. Extrapolating from this, "Doubt, The Movie" might have launched a stealth attack on narrative film's foundational myth: its presumption that seeing is understanding. (Which may be substantially the same myth, come to think of it, by which which we expect all pedophiles to be flabby middle-aged white guys). It's a somewhat quixotic goal -- though not a wildly new or original one -- but "Doubt"'s big ideas may require that kind of ambitious treatment if they are to do more than barely survive the transition between media.

Still, back in the real world, I expect it will be very nice indeed to have a film record of Shanley's remarkable text, performed by such an accomplished cast.

Any director who can foster this much ambiguity deserves an Oscar. Just after the movie credits began, I was startled to find a woman next to me ask me what I felt about "whether he did it." She proceeded to adopt Steep's role, citing diocesan bishop cover-ups as evidence. I suggested that Fr Flynn may very well have been telling that truth and that he may have been showing extraordinary compassion in resigning just to protect the child from a scandal that most certainly would have further galvanized peer (not to mention parental) abuse on the child. Expecting a response of suspicion that I myself might be a tad too sympathetic with predatory child abuse, I actually received a look, rather, of appreciation. It only occurred to me afterward the power of ambiguity the movie manages to sustain.

I seldom see movies because the majority are not worth seeing. DOUBT is the exception. The screenplay and the acting blended to create what is undoubted be one of the greatest films of all time.

I expect is actually less effective than the play is that Shanley dramatizes things that were only recounted onstage, which in some ways makes them more concrete, and العاب تلبيس is therefore at odds with the ambivalence he seeks to sow