Doubt
John Patrick Shanley's 'Doubt' presents Meryl Streep as a monster of moral certainty
"Doubt," John Patrick Shanley's award-winning play about a nun, a priest, and the unseemly accusation that puts them at each other's throats, has been reimagined for the movies. Now it's full of thunderclaps, autumnal blasts of wind, and the terrifying facial expressions of Meryl Streep, who is otherwise cloaked to her chin in black vestments.
Her bespectacled Sister Aloysius may be a woman of God, but given Streep's squalling and Shanley's indulgent direction, it might be more useful to think of her as a bird of prey. In one of the opening scenes she swoops in and thwaps a child foolish enough to sleep during a Sunday sermon. "Straighten up!" she hisses.
"Doubt," which was subtitled "A Parable" when it arrived off-Broadway in 2004, is now "Doubt, A Gothic Horror Movie," with Streep serving as its resident bogeywoman.
The outlines of the story are the same. We are in a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, where Sister Aloysius, as principal, runs the operation with a proverbial iron fist. She's trying to instill vigilance in Sister James (Amy Adams), her hopelessly kind youngest teacher.
Instead, the elder nun creates a monster. Sister James begins to suspect that the school's popular priest, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is having an inappropriate relationship with one of her pupils, an altar boy and the school's only black student. She meekly takes her suspicion to Sister Aloysius, who gathers all her righteousness to insinuate a nasty case against Father Flynn, a thoughtful, compassionate man with an expanding capacity for rage - at least where the principal is concerned.
The questions the movie raises are still compelling. Is Father Flynn guilty, and, if so, is there a mitigating circumstance that might absolve him? Should certitude ever be absolute? Yet as a consideration of faith and propriety, the movie never managed to boil my blood or break my heart. Over the play's brief running time (about an hour and a half), you could feel the walls closing in and the ceiling shrinking to meet the floor. You wanted air as much as you wanted unambiguous resolution. As a piece of writing, the best thing about "Doubt" was that it gave you neither.
By opening up the play, Shanley reduces the story's moral intensity. This includes the most astonishing moment on stage, a conversation between Sister Aloysius and the boy's mother, whom Viola Davis plays with superhuman restraint. Their talk has been staged during a walk on a breezy morning, not as a closed-door showdown, bringing with it the self-consciousness that comes when two people disagree in public. Davis is a volcano forced to hold her lava, lest she make a scene. I guess I'm guilty of wanting the scene.
Shanley has created an authentically foreboding Catholic-school atmosphere, yet doesn't trust the pure tension of his tale to absorb us. The bells and whistles aren't merely ornamental. They're desperate to convey meaning. Beware that light bulb symbolically on the fritz. And look out for the close-up of the crucifix that's almost used as an ice pick. The score, while it lacks for demonic choral chanting, manages to get turned up high along with the stormy sound effects.
Fortunately, this doesn't corrupt all the performances. Hoffman is terrific, not giving away more than he should. He sets up shop in the familiar exasperated register that leaves him spitting and makes his face turn blue. Adams finds yet another way of playing meek and naive. This time she's a church mouse.
Streep, of course, is the piece de resistance. If only she resisted a little more.
All the poise she used to capture haughty rectitude in "The Devil Wears Prada" has been turned upside down. Now it's rectitude run amok. During the movie's first half she's shrewdly insinuating, but at some point, the weeping and irritability make the character transparent - this nun sheds crocodile tears. Streep probably meant to complicate this woman, when the truth is that Sister Aloysius's steely single-mindedness is actually quite simple, which is why the movie's (and the play's) abrupt final scene is a cop-out.
Shanley seems as cowed by Streep as the kids at the school are by Sister Aloysius. He just lets her exhaust a range of ominous facial expressions. It's like watching a jack-o'-lantern pull out all the stops. She didn't make me want to confess, but I do believe I've found next year's Halloween costume.
Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. For more on movies, go to www.boston.com/movienation.
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