New on DVD Dec 25 2008 @ 07:00 am
REVIEW: Doubt
Directed By: John Patrick Shanley
Written By: John Patrick Shanley
Starring: Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Viola Davis
Running Time: 104 minutes
Rated PG-13 for thematic material
Adapted from the play of the same name, Doubt commits the cardinal sin of stage-to-screen films: it fails to add anything of value. The cinematic trappings distract rather than enhance, and one is impressed that the picture pales in comparison to its in-the-flesh predecessor; breathing human beings, a stone’s throw from your seat, would grant the story an intimacy it desperately needs, an intimacy sorely lacking here.
John Patrick Shanley adapts the script from his own play, as well as directing for the first time in 18 years (his previous effort was – can you believe it? – Joe Versus the Volcano). Meryl Streep plays Sister Aloysius, a draconian nun who principles St. Nicholas in the Bronx circa 1964. She clashes with Father Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War), a progressive parish priest, like oil and water. He suggests that Frosty the Snowman would liven up this year’s Christmas pageant; Sister Aloysius sees an endorsement of witchcraft; Father Flynn, in turn, is inspired to preach a sermon on intolerance; and so on and so forth. Sister James (Amy Adams, Enchanted), naivety incarnate, is the young nun caught betwixt their machinations when she reports on what may – or may not be – an inappropriate relationship between Father Flynn and St. Nicholas’ first black student.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman is doubtful about stuff.
Shanley was not the best choice to direct. Faithful to a fault, he attempts to spice up (read: justify) his adaptation with copious dutch angles (when the camera is tilted diagonally) that prove exceptionally distracting. Obvious, too, are the visual metaphors and religious symbolism: an all-seeing eye in stained glass glares at Father Flynn; conspicuous Jesus shadows deck the walls behind characters; while Sisters Aloysius and James discuss how to bring down Father Flynn, a custodial staff brings in a dead mouse and the cat that caught it; and so on and so forth (the phrase ‘on the nose’ was invented for such situations). A more objective architect might have repurposed the material in compelling ways; Shanley just dumps a fresh coat of paint on a structure that was fine to begin with.
The top-shelf cast is enjoyable enough – who can say no to Streep and Hoffman going toe to toe? – and accolades are already showering down like manna from heaven, but the proceedings lack emotional heft. Although we’re told much is at stake (Father Flynn being outed as a pedophile), it never feels like it, due to the insular nature of the material. On stage, this is an accepted limitation: the audience’s minds, given only actors and dialogue and a few props, work to piece together the bigger picture that exists beyond the curtain. This limitation does not exist in film – you can show anything - and so when the major drama is restricted to a single location and two characters, the audience will struggle to grasp the larger scope of things. They’re waiting, after all, for the director to show it to them.
Doubt begins to feel like a dollhouse, artificial and insubstantial and emotionally distant, which is a shame given the caliber of its parts. The sum undoubtedly looked much better on stage than it does on the sliver screen.
on Dec 26 2008 @ 12:38 am 1. D said …
I do believe you mean “silver screen”.
on Dec 26 2008 @ 3:31 pm 2. Nick Plowman said …
Oh, how I long to see this: Streep, Hoffman, Adams and Davis? Yeah. Sold. Even if you aren’t…
on Dec 27 2008 @ 11:14 am 3. Sam Juliano said …
Evan, the issue of “stage to screen” has been raging for decades. I dealt with that in my own review of the film, but couldn’t provide a final answer. It’s clearly a case of “you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.” Had Shanley opened this up, he may well have compromised the essence of the material, which would fly in the face of what he was trying to present here in the first place. My own position is that we should just “go with the flow” and appreciate the compelling material as if it were a stage play within the environs of a movie theatre. “Opening things up” could be counter-productive. I do think the transitional, autumnal tableaus were an acknowledgement towards that end, but this is a film about performances, and very great ones as you and I agree on. The controversy about how to proceed when adapted a stage play will never be resolved I’m afraid. I think this is a four-and-a-half star work, but kudos to you for your excellent review and much-respected position.
on Dec 27 2008 @ 5:39 pm 4. Adam K said …
Not apropos of “Doubt,” but are we going to be seeing ‘08 Top 10s from the resident reviewers?
on Dec 28 2008 @ 11:34 am 5. Sam Juliano said …
Adam: The general procedure is to post Top 10’s AFTER one has seen all of the films. Usually the first week of January is the time for most blogger-critics to post their final lists. Speaking for myself, i won’t see WENDY AND LUCY until tonite, CHE until Tuesday night and WALTZ WITH BASHIR until Wednesday. To make a list without seeing all the vital year-end films would be a waste of time. I am fairly certain that the Movie Zeal staff will resist releasing their own ten best lists until the beginning of the new year, when they will have gotten around to seeing all that’s needed to be seen.
Professional critics (as opposed to blogger-critics) have the luxury of endless screenings before the fact all year round.
I plan on releasing my own ten-best list on Friday, January 2nd.
on Dec 28 2008 @ 2:59 pm 6. Adam K said …
I don’t remember asking them to drop everything and print up year-end lists before year’s end. Knowing that MZ hasn’t been around long to have had Top Tens last year, I merely inquired if there would in fact be Top Tens at all.
And I’m not sure what you mean by after someone has seen “all” the films. Although many print and even online reviewers post Top Tens before the end of the year, there’s certainly a kind of sense in waiting until the year is literally over. But I’d feel presumptuous, even in my most cinephilic years, to claim that I’ve seen all of the “vital” works of a given calendar year, let alone everything there is/was to be seen. One has to arbitrarily draw a line somewhere, and then the immediate fun of reevaluation begins.
on Dec 28 2008 @ 3:21 pm 7. Sam Juliano said …
Oh really Adam?
I see well over 170 films a year theatrically as do so many others, including the distinguished group here at Movie Zeal, and the head critics at LIC, CCC, and many others sites. What I mean is this: “Before one embarks on making a year-end ten best list, one should try and see all the potential inclusions on that list.” Hence, until I see WENDY AND LUCY tonite, CHE on Tuesday night and WALTZ WITH BASHIR on Wednesday, I won’t firm up anything until every possibility is exhausted.
Hence, the ten best lists you spoke of (regardless of the duration of MZ’s existance) should rightfully be submitted when said critic has seen as many of the major possibilities. Anything less would lead to cumbersome revisions and a less that thorough judgement.
Isn’t that fair enough? I wish you and yours a Happy New Year!
on Dec 28 2008 @ 3:29 pm 8. Adam K said …
I asked if top ten lists would ever be posted.
The answer is yes.
That’s all I wanted to know.
on Dec 28 2008 @ 3:45 pm 9. Adam K said …
P.S. I hope you enjoy “Wendy and Lucy” as much as I did.
on Dec 28 2008 @ 11:31 pm 10. Fox said …
Evan-
I totally agree with you on the stage-to-screen blah-ness of this film.
I know it’s a much different scenario, but I saw the same flaws with Mamma Mia! on the screen. The director didn’t know what to do with the camera. It was insulting.
Anyway, I would go further and say that Shanley brings us nothing new or exciting from this work, whether on stage or screen.
on Dec 29 2008 @ 3:28 pm 11. Sam Juliano said …
So basically Fox, nothing that is transferred from stage-to-screen has any chance with you, right? I completely disagree with your entire position on this film, as do the vast majority of the scribes. The piece plays itself out, with actors and script taking center stage. Shanley doesn’t need to bring anything else to the table. The essence of the piece could well be violated by such an attempt.
Hi Adam. I did love WENDY AND LUCY quite a bit, as did my wife, Allan Fish and Kaleem Hasan. It will probably just missed my top ten list, but it’s a certain runner-up to it. Thanks for asking, and happy you felt the way you did on it.
on Dec 29 2008 @ 4:25 pm 12. Craig Kennedy said …
Happy Holidays Fine People of MovieZeal!
I can’t compare the stage version to the screen version because I’ve only seen the latter, but this is one of the best movies of the year in my book.
It was opened up cinematically no more than it needed to be. Shanley (and Roger Deakins) took ample advantage of the tools of the trade without going for cinema for cinema’s sake. What did you want? Monkeys with laser riles and jetpacks?
I had a couple of small issues with it (They literally used the words “doubt” and “certainty” like 4 too many times), but the performances alone were worth the price of admission. I don’t care if it’s on stage or on screen, I’ll watch Streep at her best any day of the week and the others weren’t too shabby either.
That’s not to say you’re required to agree with me…if a movie doesn’t grab you, it doesn’t grab you, but I think the stage-screen criticism is a little overused.
on Dec 30 2008 @ 7:18 am 13. Luke Harrington said …
I have yet to see this film, and I might not anytime soon, but I think the stage-to-screen question is an interesting one. Certainly there are films where the unity of time and space can be constricting, but it seems like it helps as often as it hurts. Wait Until Dark and Arsenic and Old Lace both come to mind as films where the confinement simply serves to intensify the proceedings.
That’s all I got. Thanks for the holiday wishes, Craig.
on Dec 30 2008 @ 12:18 pm 14. Luke Harrington said …
Since I’m here, I should also confirm that yes, we are planning a “top 10″ list for the year (in addition to a “bottom 10″…which I admit I’m a bit more excited about).
I’m honestly not sure what happened to my MZ colleagues, though…I haven’t heard from any of them, in any form, in a long time. Hopefully, they’re just enjoying the holidays.
on Dec 31 2008 @ 1:13 pm 15. Evan Derrick said …
Thanks for all of the comments, guys. Sorry I haven’t responded before now. I’ve been on a whirlwind Christmas tour, visiting no less than 5 separate family groups (we’ll clock around 3000 miles in 2 1/2 weeks), and I’ve had spotty to non-existent internet access. But here I am!
You’re right, Sam. The stage-to-screen argument has raged for quite a while, and I was quite aware that many critics (yourself and CK over at LiC) specifically addressed the stage-to-screen issues, and found the film succeeded within those confines. As to “damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” I’d much rather a director lean towards the “damned if you do” camp. It’s a film, after all – give us something we could not have seen on the stage. But, of course, that is a matter of preference, which is often what film criticism comes down to.
Craig, as to “what I wanted,” I think it was a process of being emotionally uninvolved with the film and attempting to reason backwards to the cause. For me, the film lacked a larger context; I didn’t feel the weight of what was transpiring. I was impressed with all of the acting, certainly, entertained even, but never riveted by the content, and honestly could not have cared how it ended. Part of that, I believe, was because it did feel so stagey and contained. I wanted Shanley to take me outside of the parish, into the characters lives in other contexts. Barring that, everything began to feel artificial to me. As Luke put, sometimes the constrained setting of such adaptations can really enhance them cinematically, but not for Doubt.
And yes, as Luke already stated, we will be doing Top 10 lists sometime in January, Adam. I’ve already seen almost everything worth seeing (Sam, perhaps it’s best that I don’t state my position on Wendy and Lucy), but my colleagues have not. We plan on compiling those next year. Hopefully our lists will be interesting and set apart from the usual critics’ lists.
on Dec 31 2008 @ 8:52 pm 16. Alexander Coleman said …
A fine review, Evan. I’m more on the Craig-and-Sam side of the equation concerning Doubt, but even I criticized what was an overemphasis of “stagy,” theatrical metaphor resulting in a lack of subtlety, a degree of which must be expected.
Nevertheless, if you found it mostly uninvolving, there is no way one can persuade you otherwise. Cinematically, I believe Shanley and cinematographer Roger Deakins did a predominantly splendid job of creating a world unto itself that was confined to the parish. Some of the dutch angles did become annoying, but some were used well to underline the tripartite tension of so much of the drama.
Regardless, a terrific review. And just keep in mind my Doubt-defending comes from a fellow who didn’t think terribly highly of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.