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I did not understand why there was a rather sentimental mood at times. This story is not exactly one that is light-hearted for viewers. My thoughts are in halves: that this film should be more hard-hitting and heavy, and that the film should be accessible to even very young audiences. I guess the tone of the film isn’t too dark, but the film is advertised as if it takes itself very seriously. It doesn’t.

Meryl Streep can make any character she plays likeable, even if she is a very conservative and strict nun in Doubt. Almost every character is likeable here, and the acting is marvellous as one would expect with Streep. Nothing surprising there. Overall, Doubt is an enjoyable film, but it could have been so much better without some often strange camera angles, as well as the confused atmosphere of the film. Am I supposed to laugh or cry, or both?

Film drama yang diadaptasi dari naskah teater John Patrick Shanley berjudul sama, Doubt, menceritakan mengenai kehidupan di sebuah gereja Katolik di Bronx, New York.

Bersetting tahun 1964, Doubt menceritakan kecurigaan Sister Aloysius (Streep) akan beberapa sikap “aneh” yang ditunjukkan Father Flynn (Seymour Hoffman). Sister Aloysius curiga kalau Father Flynn adalah seorang homoseksual yang memanfaatkan posisinya sebagai seorang pastur untuk dapat “memuaskan nafsunya” dengan siswa laki-laki yang ada di sekolah Katolik tersebut. Dugaan tersebut semakin kuat setelah suatu hari, Sister James (Adams) melaporkan pada Sister Aloysius kalau Father Flynn mengundang seorang siswa pria untuk “bertemu” dengannya di kantornya.

Keberhasilan Shanley dalam mengarahkan film drama kelas atas ini adalah Shanley tidak terjebak untuk memihak salah satu pihak pun di film ini. Film ini tidak memberikan pembenaran pada sikap Sister Aloysius, namun juga tidak menyatakan secara gamblang kalau Father Flynn benar adalah seorang homoseksual. Shanley hanya memberikan pembenaran bagi dugaan Sister Aloysius dengan memberikan gambaran kalau Father Flynn adalah seorang pesolek, yang merawat kuku-kuku tangannya dengan begitu bersih.

Namun, bagi penonton yang terlanjur berpihak pada Sister Aloysius tetap saja tidak dapat membuktikan apapun, karena Father Flynn sendiri tidak pernah digambarkan melakukan apapun yang “kurang ajar” di film ini. Malah, penonton akan berbalik simpati padanya setelah melihat Sister Aloysius menyerangnya dan melakukan sebuah kebohongan demi mendapatkan apa yang ia inginkan. Disinilah arti judul film ini berpegangan kuat. Doubt. Karena para penonton pun dibuat ragu akan kebenaran cerita masing-masing pihak. Extraordinary!

Hal kedua yang membuat film drama ini berada di jajaran terdepan adalah penampilan para cast-nya yang luar biasa. Meryl Streep, seperti biasa, selalu memberikan penampilan terbaik disetiap filmnya. Hal yang sama juga diberikan oleh Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams dan Viola Davis. Adalah sebuah hal yang jarang untuk melihat penampilan empat aktor dan aktris yang sama kuatnya, namun tetap saling mendukung karakter lainnya, dalam sebuah film drama.

Dengan naskah cerita yang sangat kuat, ditambah performa para cast yang luar biasa, untungnya sutradara John Patrick Shanley mampu memadukan berbagai unsur tersebut sehingga Doubt menjadi sebuah powerful drama yang tidak akan mudah untuk dilupakan para penontonnya.

Rate: 4.5 / 5

Seeing Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Merryl Streep go at it (fighting-wise) in a scene together was enough to make my head explode. Excellent, excellent cast — though I wish Amy Adams would branch out a bit and maybe take on a character that wasn’t so pleasant all the time (I still like her, I just wish she would challenge herself!). I loved the subtlety and ambiguity of the story, and the fact that we never find out what actually happened. These things made the film more thought-provoking and powerful. Not the best film of all time, but certainly not a waste of money.

I have always been against films directly addressing subjects, instead of being subtle; in this case doubt. But this film was different. It possible that the reason I connect to it is that I am the son of an Episcopal priest and have a a special insight to the workings of a church. My mother is nothing like Hoffman’s, Streep’s, or Adam’s character, but the way the sermons were filmed were very real and honest, which is what I always look for in films. One of my favorites of ’08 along with Synecdoche, New York.

Upon seeing the trailer for John Patrick Shanley’s film Doubt, based upon his own play, I just thought, wow, a great cast with a dull story. Well, after seeing it, my mind has been changed to believing that the accolades strewn down may be warranted. Something about small-scale films adapted from theatre resonates with me. I love the emotional punch packed inside, tightly constructed for a powerful impact. Unlike a novel, plays need to get everything out in a short period of time, and that concentrated energy gets released with so much more weight. What I originally thought would be a back and forth between priest and nun, eventually ending in the truth coming out and all being over, instead becomes an exercise in humanity and ego. Everything we do as people has reasons and consequences, the truth is a strong thing, but speculation is even stronger. When someone gets an idea into his head, he will continue that course of thinking until the end, doing whatever he can to bring the wrongdoer to justice and vindicate the victim. No matter how much that judge may believe he is doing right, the toll and price of his actions may exceed the cost of finding the truth. Because if the truth isn’t what he thinks, he will never believe it, therefore making justice void, ruining lives by allowing fear and the unknown take control over the pursuit and achievement of fact.

Watching this subject matter in the forum of a church is an interesting and disturbing thing. While the idea of child molestation hangs in the balance, on whether this priest began an inappropriate relationship with a boy, it is not the main aspect of the story. Instead, the question of how someone deals with his own doubt comes to the forefront. As Father Flynn, the priest in question played wonderfully by Philip Seymour Hoffman, says early on, doubt can be as powerfully bonding as conviction. You may think it’s you versus the world, but there are really so many out there sharing the same questions of faith and action as you. All it takes is one small event, one seemingly innocuous moment to make someone question another’s actions. Once the seed of doubt is planted, however, it is very tough to remove, yet rather easy to spread onto others.

The film doesn’t even really need to tell you if the atrocity in question actually occurred or not, that isn’t important. What is crucial becomes how everyone involved deals with the accusations. The power struggle of the church becomes a big factor as you start to question whether the men do have the women pressed under their controlling grip. By juxtaposing the dinner quarters of the two groups, watching the nuns sit properly and eat in silence while the men laugh and joke and indulge themselves, you can’t help but wonder about that dynamic. At multiple instances the regimented structural hierarchy of nun to priest to bishop to pope comes up showing a chain of authority that cannot be questioned at any moment. The format only succeeds if it is followed to the letter, the entire system will topple if anything less occurs.

As a result, so much is challenged. Religion, morals, that gray line between right and wrong, whether wrong can somehow be good if you allow yourself to see only the benefits and lie to yourself about the horrors happening along with them—this film will make you look deep inside yourself and wonder how you’d react. Would you be able to go against your vows, against the rules of God that you have followed for so long, in order to seek what you thought was right? Would you question a higher authority’s word on a hunch? Would you have that much faith in yourself that he was lying? To be able to fully commit yourself in a course of action, consequences be damned, you must have no doubt at all. However, if at the end things change, if doubts start creeping in, you will be devastatingly lost, always unsure of yourself and whether you can ever trust your gut again.

The strength and resolve of a human being is not shown better than in the two final confrontations of this film. Viola Davis is amazing as the possible victim’s mother, a woman who is trying to keep her family together and give her son a chance at a life. No matter what is happening, she just needs until June, until he graduates, then he can go away to a good high school and possibly college. 1964 is not an easy time for a black family in a heavily populated Irish neighborhood. She is surviving and hoping her son does as well, because it isn’t just the boys in school, or the teachers making accusations on each other around him, but also their home too, with a father that won’t except a son who doesn’t fit his ideals. When she and Meryl Streep, the nun at the head of Father Flynn’s witch trial, have their walk together, that scene becomes the film. Davis, as a mother, begins to go outside the boundaries of that sacred job just as Streep goes out of hers as a nun. The two are so much the same, yet on opposite sides, that it becomes such a powerhouse of emotions and revelations.

But it all culminates in the final showdown between Hoffman and Streep, the point at which the film takes a turn I never anticipated it doing. Whether the truth comes out or not, this is a scene containing two of the best, screaming and challenging one another with empty threats, lies, and half-truths. They are the two biggest monsters in a film chock full of them. Both are doing what in their minds is right, risking the ruin of the other for something no one has proof for or against. It becomes a test of whether a reputation becomes bigger than the person. Is it worth it to risk shame in order to keep a lie underwraps? Just because there is no proof for guilt doesn’t mean the creed “innocent until proven guilty” will hold true. Once someone calls another’s self into question, once a person’s integrity becomes blemished due to fact or fiction, there is no turning back. Like the metaphor of a pillow’s feathers flying across town, unable to be retrieved, gossip spreads like wildfire and it can never be overturned. People will always think twice, but it also works the other way too. If everyone seems to feel that person is just, and it’s only you who thinks differently, well then the guilt all of a sudden transfers. It begins to eat away at you as you wonder if all that work, all those sacrifices with their dire consequences, were for nothing.

Doubt played out in ways that I didn’t imagine it to. One can look at the trailer and get the sense that this was originally a staged play. A play that I would actually like to see. That being said, the entire weight of the film is resting on the backs of the dialogue-driven characters, which includes amazing performances by Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams. Oh, and Viola Davis, for that one scene she was in.

I found the pacing of the film to be a little off. There were times where conversations were escalating, only to be interrupted by some vain attempt at humor (the light bulb going out, for instance(unless, of course, if that was some form of symbolism)). Like I said earlier, the acting is what Doubt is all about. Streep plays one mean old-timer of a bitch who is on a mission, and, in my opinion, should have won the Academy Award, not the lackluster Penelope Cruz. Hoffman pays one of the coolest pastors around, and I would have loved to befriended this character . . . if I knew that he wouldn’t diddle me. One scene that sticks out in my head was when Hoffman and the other men of the church are sitting at the dinner table, sipping fine drink and telling jokes, with high soaring giggles roaring from their over-stuffed bellies, which then transitions to the sister’s table, where everyone is sitting as still as a statue, trying to make as little noise as possible as to not upset Sister Meryl Streep. Amy Adams is just too innocent.

I enjoyed the musical score, but, then again, who wouldn’t, as maestro Howard Shore was on the job. Roger Deakins performs some amazing cinematography here, and, well, I thought the dutch angles were cool. Whenever I see John Papp I’m going to tilt my head so he will forever be at a dutch angle in my eyes.

I rather enjoyed the ending. Sure, it was a nasty trick, but I think it truly goes to show that Hoffman’s character did do those nasty little things, even at past churches. The ending conversation between Meryl Streep and Amy Adams is what really stuck out to me in this movie. When Streep hunches over, crying, confessing that she is having doubts, well that really struck a chord in me. I am not religious in any way, but I still find it crushing when someone, especially as devoted as she is, starts to question, or even loose their faith, that one familiar thing that has always been in their life. I really enjoyed this movie, and I would like to give it a higher rating, but there was something . . . just something that didn’t sit with me right. Meh, I’ll have to toss it around in my head some more before I come to a final conclusion.

So much can be said for the powerful performances in this film, and so much has been said… so I will leave it at that. This film is not perfect, yet it is overall a gripping human drama that lends itself to the viewers mind and own devices, prejudices, and opinions. I have to admit that I was more enthralled with the community of people that were watching the film with me, and their responses to its subject matter. It’s a film that will stick with you long after it is over. It does, at times, feel a bit preachy but it’s overall prerogative of showing an unbiased story based on an act that you cannot help but have an immediate opinion about is at the most compelling and at the least courageous.