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In US courts, defendants aren't exactly declared innocent,
they're rather found to be not guilty for lack of sufficient
evidence, a state of affairs that can in reality haunt a
blameless individual for the rest of his life. That is,
in terms of that gnawing concept of lingering doubt that
may persist against him in the eyes of society. ***
Such a troubling notion, touching on the impossibility
of closure that defines multiple symbolic aspects of the
mysteries of human existence, is the weighty subject matter
of John Patrick Shanley's Doubt. Adapted from his award
winning stage play, the movie unfolds within the hermetic,
austere walls of St. Nicholas Catholic School in the Bronx
in the mid-1960s, an institution where guilt is nearly a
fetishistic way of life.***
Punitive dreaded principal and supremely sarcastic
head nun, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) presides over the
eerie gothic school more like a prison warden. She's the
sort of severe religious headmistress who believes that
bad boys would set their foot on fire to get the day off
from school, is suspicious of that newfangled writing implement
called the ballpoint pen, smacks students in the head for
not paying sufficient attention, and bans Frosty The Snowman
from holiday events as a shameful vestige of paganism.***
So it's no surprise when Sister Aloysius comes into
conflict with jolly, kindhearted Father Flynn, a parish
priest at the school who preaches - gasp - compassion and
tolerance from the pulpit, succumbs to the apparent sin
of temptation by taking three sugars with his tea, and likes
Frosty The Snowman. And above all, arouses her suspicions
when he demonstrates a special interest in helping Donald
(Joseph Foster II), the first and only black student at
the school, adjust to his socially problematic situation
there in what was the heat of the turbulent Civil Rights
Movement era back then.***
And though Sister Aloysius has only minimal circumstantial
evidence of any improper relationship with Donald on the
part of Father Flynn - when he's caught covering up an incident
where the boy guzzles altar wine on the sly - the nun embarks
on a rabid mission to hound the priest until he's driven
out of the school. And Sister Aloysius is aided in her obsessive
cause by a gullible young nun (Amy Adams), whom she pressures
into spying on Father Flynn.***
Doubt is visually stunning and drenched in moody, chilling
atmosphere, and Meryl Streep is nothing less than terrifying
as the self-righteous dragon lady. But why are our most
esteemed older actresses always relegated to all those ghastly
shrew roles. And there's something awfully hypocritical
and, yes, sexist about these entire proceedings. And it's
not just those shamelessly manipulative scenes of the priests
making merry over wine and sumptuous dinners in their separate
quarters, while the nuns pick over their unappetizing looking
meals like fussy crones with chronic indigestion.***
If Shanley is in fact condemning any rush to judgment
and professing doubt as a humanistic principle, why is the
deck so solidly stacked here, not just against Streep's
malevolent character, but all the women in the film? There's
even a mother who confesses that she doesn't mind if her
son is being molested by a pedophile priest, as long as
he gets to graduate. Will all the mothers in the audience
who have ever heard such an idea even hinted at from the
lips of a fellow female parent, please raise your hands.***
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