I got into a disagreement with a fellow columnist after last week's screening of John Patrick Shanley's Doubt. He didn't have a problem with the acting or the writing or the general thrust of it, even, but he felt it "wasn't visual enough." I gathered that he wanted to see Doubt meets Children of Men. Something swoopier, fiercer, crazier...whatever.
The irony for me is that the visual delivery in this film (and I don't just mean the beautifully muted fall-winter colors in Roger Deakins' cinematography) is just right. Shanley's direction serves the holy grail of the text and lets the performers -- Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Viola Davis, Amy Adams -- do their stuff. They do that and more. And when it's over you know you've bitten into something, or it's bitten into you.
There's so much to be said for a contained and compressed high-pedigree drama that does exactly what it intends to do, and is very content with this. A film without lunging, stumbles or missteps. Doubt doesn't waste a frame or a line or a single shot, and it leaves you hanging in just the right way. That is to say it disturbs and agitates without resorting to easy catharsis. A play this well served isn't just a play well served. It morphs into something else -- a dramatic life form of its own.
This is why I feel it's Best Picture material. The chops and the content serve the whole and vice versa. And, like I said last week, when you throw in Deakins' cinematography it's even more of a feat. Doubt is a smallish film -- a story about ambiguity and uncertainty among a small group of people in two or three rooms with a hallway and a park thrown in -- that acts and in fact becomes "big" because of its sharpness and discipline. There's really no way to assail it that cuts any ice with me.
Todd McCarthy's Variety review aside, I loved Streep's performance as Sister Aloysius Beauvier. She's the very model of a pinched and joyless crone, an old- school harridan with a habit -- the kind of nun that used to try and "beat an education" into Marlon Brando's Terry Malloy. The fact that she's a kind of mythical beast and that Streep is expert at letting you know precisely what's going on in her hard and damning head is, for me, a trip. She's almost Mommie Dearest, and I mean that as a genuine compliment.
If I still got high I would get royally blitzed next month and go see Doubt with friends and quietly chuckle at every gesture.
And I don't mean she tries for comedy. The genius of Streep's performance is that you can take her work as dead straight drama component or a hoot, depending on your mood or attitude. What counts is that you can sit there and read her each and every second. There's never any doubt what she's thinking, intuiting, suspecting.
Set in the Bronx in 1964, inside a grim Catholic school called St. Nicholas, Shanley's play is basically about Sister Beauvier's growing suspicions that Father Flynn (Hoffman) has gotten a bit too intimate -- perhaps more than that -- with an African-American altar boy named Donald (Joseph Foster II).
But it's not just an "is he or isn't he?" thing. Shanley's play is clean and precise in the way the themes of the piece are made unmistakable from the get-go. "What do you do when you're not sure?" Flynn asks in his opening-scene sermon. And yet Streep is sure -- she doesn't allow for any overt uncertainty because she damn well knows. And she may be right, we come to realize as things move along.
But is she in fact that? Is Hoffman's priest a born diddler -- a Johnson-era manifestation of a malignancy that has turned the Catholic church's rep into a sick joke over the last decade or two? Or is he being steamrolled to some extent? Or maybe a little bit, at least?
Doubt's dramatic peak comes when Sister Aloysius has a frank conversation with Donald's mom (Davis) about what may in fact be going on. The scene is harrowing because of what Davis does with it. Streep pretty much listens and reacts and slowly becomes more and more appalled as she considers the mother's rationalizations -- her fear of going into this realm, knowing or believing as she does that it's not Father Flynn as much as...well, let's not spoil.
The scene lasts only ten or twelve minutes, but Davis' performance is Beatrice Straight great -- and if you have to ask what that means, forget it. It's a bulls-eye performance that everyone but everyone is going to have to acknowledge.
Hoffman's Flynn delivers...how to say it? A pervy but earnest ambiguity. Your gut tells you he's probably a pederast, certainly in terms of latent desire, but at the same time something tells you he may not quite be. He may finally be a straddler, and that in itself is not a punishable offense.
Adams plays a kindly young nun who senses the undercurrents and cross-currents as clearly as Streep does, but whose function is mainly to emotionally telegraph all this to the slower folks in the audience.
There's no coming out of Doubt and going "meh." There's nothing amiss about any of it. Okay, it's not madly David Fincher or Alfonso Cuaron but it is like a kind of perfect moral swiss watch, and such things are very hard to sculpt in just the right way. Anyone who sees it and shrugs is looking into some kind of cavern of their own soul. Every move is nailed down tight in this thing. And class, focus and discipline can't be faked. Either a film has these things in abundance or it doesn't. There's no ambiguity here.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on November 6, 2008 at 7:41 PM
comment #1
The InSneider
says ...
Interesting take. I'm seeing it tomorrow morning. One thing's for sure, it's tough to write this comment, or any comments on your site, staring at Hoffman's withered pumpkin of a face (x2) in those Synecdoche banner ads. A nightmare of a movie. A nightmare of an ad. Please make that movie go away. It sucked. It was horrible. Charlie Kaufman should go write his next 'masterpiece,' or 'disasterpiece,' depending on how you look at it, with his tail between his legs.
Posted by The InSneider
at November 6, 2008 8:22 PM
comment #2
Zimmergirl
says ...
It is shaping up like one of those that is always compared to the original play. If you've seen the play you won't like the movie as much, etc.
Posted by Zimmergirl
at November 6, 2008 8:31 PM
comment #3
Edward
says ...
I've been interested in seeing this, but your impressions make me even more interested. Thanks.
Posted by Edward
at November 6, 2008 8:49 PM
comment #4
Roman
says ...
"It sucked. It was horrible. Charlie Kaufman should go write his next 'masterpiece,' or 'disasterpiece,' depending on how you look at it, with his tail between his legs."
I usualy don't say this but maybe you should go read Roger Ebert's review of the movie. Clear your head and suck up the truth.
Posted by Roman
at November 6, 2008 9:18 PM
comment #5
The InSneider
says ...
Roman, I've read every important review regarding Synecdoche and I admire some critics' insistence on going out of their way to praise it and try and make sense of it but no one will be able to convince me that I should ever sit through that movie again. I know Kaufman designed it for multiple viewings but you have to earn those multiple viewings, let alone a first viewing. Kaufman's name alone earned the first. The film did not earn a second. It does deserve to be seen because it is a daring, ambitious, original vision but it was still painful to sit through. That said, the performances were all impressive, and hopefully Hoffman's work in Doubt will be equally strong. There's no denying the man is one of the best in the biz. Kaufman too. But Kaufman is not infallible and Synecdoche showed him to be living on a different planet and thinking on a completely different plane than my brain could handle. I'm glad he made the movie he did and I'm glad I saw it but I would never actually recommend it to anyone looking to see a good movie or enjoy themselves at the theater.
Posted by The InSneider
at November 6, 2008 9:38 PM
comment #6
Chase Kahn
says ...
I'm looking forward to it. It will be refreshing to see Amy Adams not playing a frolicsome, Poppy-like character...
Posted by Chase Kahn
at November 6, 2008 9:54 PM
comment #7
Jimmycrackcorn
says ...
If the movie is a period piece, as the play was, what are those groovy frameless spectacles Streep is wearing in the above photo? Did I miss something and nuns really were decades ahead of their time in eyewear?
Posted by Jimmycrackcorn
at November 6, 2008 10:38 PM
comment #8
Jimmycrackcorn
says ...
Wish you could have seen the play, Jef. Cherry Jones did not play it as Mommy Dearest at all, or someone you would get high and hoot at. She was terrifying, in her fashion, but also somebody you ended up liking and admiring, to an extent--a very complicated character, and not a caricature of a knuckle rapping nun.
Posted by Jimmycrackcorn
at November 6, 2008 10:41 PM
comment #9
YND
says ...
I saw Jones in the play and saw the movie. While I think Jones' performance is pretty much unbeatable, I still thought Streep was great. I'll admit there were a couple of moments where I felt her take on it left her vulnerable to the kind of melodrama that McCarthy had a problem with, but generally I thought it was damn good adaptation for the screen. The performances were all excellent and the transition from stage to screen was very smooth.
The way I found myself thinking about it afterward was that the film did a great job of capturing a text that otherwise would be lost for people who didn't have the chance to see it on stage. I think the material, by its nature, works best as a play... and I felt that Shanley overreached once or twice as a director... but still a totally recommendable film.
Posted by YND
at November 7, 2008 12:25 AM
comment #10
Jason
says ...
Here's Beatrice Straight great.
Years ago I remember reading a stupid, stupid, stupid Maxim article on undeserved Academy Awards and the writer had the gall to single out Beatrice here and demand to know who the hell she was and what the hell else she had done.
Posted by Jason
at November 7, 2008 7:26 AM
comment #11
erniesouchak
says ...
Roger Deakins' work always, ALWAYS suits the material, and that is the case on "Doubt." The boldest visual elements are a few canted angles, and for a piece like this, that's as it should be. Anything visually theatrical would be absurd. Same is true of "Revolutionary Road." The man is attracted to character pieces, adult dramas, and God bless him for it.
Posted by erniesouchak
at November 7, 2008 8:35 AM
comment #12
The InSneider
says ...
Excellent film, one of the best of the year. Streep was very good. But Hoffman, my god. Brilliant.
Posted by The InSneider
at November 7, 2008 2:08 PM
comment #13
BurmaShave
says ...
So the female Daniel Plainview?
Posted by BurmaShave
at November 7, 2008 3:19 PM
comment #14
arturobandini2
says ...
Jimmycrackcorn, I love your observation about Streep's specs. Nothing pulls me out of a period piece faster than anachronistic eyewear. I watched Round Midnight again recently and, as much as I love that film, Herbie Hancock's glasses SCREAM 1986. And I predict that someday, people will howl with laughter at the "futuristic" Foster Grants that everyone wore in the Matrix trilogy.
Posted by arturobandini2
at November 7, 2008 5:36 PM
comment #15
SeanL71
says ...
http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2008/11/meryl-streep-do.html
Cherry Jones calls Streep magnificent in Doubt. I would consider her opinion the one that really counts.
Posted by SeanL71
at November 7, 2008 7:36 PM
comment #16
Bennito56
says ...
Regarding the glasses. A little homework is in order. Wireless or rimless glasses have been around since the 1800s, thanks to the Belgians. The earlier versions, if you recall, were called pince-nez, but some models even back then looked similar to those worn by Streep.
Posted by Bennito56
at November 7, 2008 7:42 PM
comment #17
arturobandini2
says ...
Interesting, Bennito56 -- I had no idea they've been around so long. For the record, I wear a pair of rimless Oliver Peoples specs that are identical to the ones Streep wears in the photo above. In fact, I am 97% certain they are the same model.
Posted by arturobandini2
at November 7, 2008 9:46 PM
comment #18
nancyyy
says ...
UGG Tassel Short 5835 Black
UGG Tassel Short 5835 Chestnut
UGG Tassel Short 5835 Chocolate
UGG Tassel Short 5835 Grey
UGG Tassel Short 5835 Sand
Ugg Sundance II 5325 Black
Posted by nancyyy
at November 10, 2010 11:27 PM
comment #19
janee
says ...
Si vous etes interesses par le dossier, ou desirez en savoir plus, contactez-moi par mail, et je vous mettrai en contact.
Best regards,Jane, CEO of high availability storage
Posted by janee
at May 19, 2011 12:36 AM