DOUBT

You know who's sexy? Philip Seymour Hoffman. You know who's even sexier? Philip Seymour Hoffman as a priest. Judge me if you will! I am sticking to it. It started sometime around FIRST AND MAIN, a movie that slipped under the radar but is definitely worth a look, especially for PSH's lovable turn as a nebbish writer with a bit of the ol' writer's block (awww). I haven't had a smart crush like my hankering for some Hoffman since Pacey and his butt chin first used four-syllable SAT words in normal conversation on "Dawson's Creek." Talk dirty. Tell me what "perceptible epicenism" means. In fact, I don't even care.

Okay, okay, okay...I don't think PSH is sexy (in this movie). Sorry to start your gag reflex, but I'll be honest--I do usually find him oddly attractive. However, something about him as a man of the cloth eating meat cooked rare while being accused of fornicating with the youth...is not enticing. What DID get me with DOUBT were the leading women. Meryl Streep and Amy Adams were pretty on the money. Both of their characters were such caricatures of the time and the setting, so theatrically cartoonish, that I almost wanted to dismiss the two actresses for over-acting, but every time Meryl's Bronx accent would start to annoy me, or Amy's penchant for tears would get me down (letop5 cries a lot, too), I would realise that that was, in fact, the point. Are they acting hard, or hardly acting? The questions began to arise.

DOUBT centers around a small parochial parish and school in New York a year after JFK's assassination. The school's enjoying the awkward presence of their first black student (woooointegration!) under the chilly-cold stare of their principal, Sister Aloysius, played by the great Meryl. Meryl's young protogee, Sister James (Amy Adams) sees some suspect behavior transpire between PSH and the Black Student and sends word to her superior, who begins a targeted smoke out against the priest in question. She is certain he has done wrong. We don't know left from right. Hijinks do not ensue. But a little bit of heartache does.

The story with DOUBT, if you just saw MILK, is that the whole world is gay, and no one understands. The story with DOUBT, if you didn't see MILK and don't know what "epicenism" means, is probably still perceptible.

At the heart, DOUBT is definitely an example of a stage play eloquently being fit for the screen. At tonight's screening, the Pulitzer-winning playwright cum screenwriter/director of both the stage play and the movie, Mr. John Patrick Shanley (yes, he also wrote CONGO and JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO), was on hand afterward for an LA Times-led Q&A, during which he impressed me (as I'm sure he was striving to do) with his attention to the historical context of, not only the time period during which his arresting, fictional story took place, but also the era during which he wrote it--in 2004 when the country was swinging between doubt and certainty, confusion and clarity, about the changing political climate. Even now in 2008 this movie's meta-theme is topical: we can, at best, only act with emotion. We are sure, yet unsure. We are wise, yet unwise. We are blue; we are red; we are pink; we are grey. In short, we know nothing! Of course it would take a movie to show us that.

plot: Everyone is scared of nuns.
thought: Way to make Angie run, Meryl.
in five: 4/5

assure yourself: http://doubt-themovie.com/