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Writer\/director John Patrick Shanley took on what might seem to be an easy task, adapting his own Pulitzer prize winning play, Doubt<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0into a successful film.\u00a0 However, success on the stage does not always translate to success on film.\u00a0 That is why Shanley deserves a great deal of credit for successfully turning his play into one of the year\u2019s finest films.<\/p>\nOne year after the assassination of President Kennedy, Father Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) gives a sermon on the feelings of doubt felt by those part of a community and by those who are alone in their feelings.\u00a0 Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep) becomes suspicious that Father Flynn may have personal reasons for his sermon.\u00a0 When Sister James (Amy Adams) informs Sister Aloysius that Father Flynn has taken a special interest in the parish school\u2019s first black student Donald Muller (Joseph Foster), she becomes certain that Father Flynn has made sexual advances upon the boy despite the fact that there is no proof.\u00a0 Both characters and their motives come into question with no easy answers and the audience must decide which side they believe, or believe in.<\/p>\n
In only his second directing effort, John Patrick Shanley has crafted a fine drama with well placed bits of humor and incredibly fleshed out characters. He manages to give the film a very cold, gray feel and look well suited to its subject and time.\u00a0 The acting is phenomenal and Meryl Streep has her best role in many years and she does not waste it.\u00a0 She shows incredible range as the icy, stern Sister Aloysius, a woman so conservative she wants to ban ball point pens and considers Frosty the Snowman to be a pagan song.\u00a0 She is funny and frightening in her authority and Streep makes us watch in awe as she chews up the scenery.\u00a0 Phillip Seymour Hoffman is solid as Father Flynn and presents him in the same vein as former film priests Father Connelly in Angels With Dirty Faces and Father O\u2019Malley in Going My Way.\u00a0 There has been much buzz around the performance of Viola Davis as Mrs. Muller; while she is powerful, she only has one big scene and that is it.\u00a0 She makes you want more, but all the attention that has been showered on that performance is taking attention away from another great performance in the film–that of Amy Adams as the cheerful, gentle, and timid Sister James, in a role that could have been very forgettable in the hands of a lesser actress.\u00a0 Adams is wonderful as she is completely overpowered by Sister Aloysius.\u00a0 Even as she yells at her at the top of her lungs she is completely vulnerable and powerless against this woman.\u00a0 This is a strong film carried by its incredible acting and one that you won\u2019t want to miss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reviewed by Byron Potau.\u00a0 Viewed at The Riviera Theatre, Santa Barbara, CA. Writer\/director John Patrick Shanley took on what might seem to be an easy task, adapting his own Pulitzer prize winning play, Doubt,\u00a0into a successful film.\u00a0 However, success on the stage does not always translate to success on film.\u00a0 That is why Shanley deserves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cinema-society","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}