by Eugene Curran CM

Eugene Curran CM reviews Doubt, a movie directed by John Patrick Shanley from his stage play of the same title.

‘View without prejudice’; it’s not something that you can do easily with this film.

Although it is set in 1964 in the Bronx, New York, it is a film that is so pertinent to today and to today’s Church and one of its most public crises that you cannot remain distant from its subject matter.

Three things had struck me before the movie even got rolling; three things that affected how I interpreted the unfolding of events. Firstly, the central role of Sr Aloysius  is played by Meryl Streep; whether you love her or hate her – and few people can remain neutral – any role undertaken by La Streep is going to be emotionally charged and, such is her status as an actress, you will know that you are watching a ‘Masterclass’. Streep will command the audience’s respect, as Aloysius commands the respect of her Sisters and her pupils. She commands it – it is clear that it is not always freely given.

Secondly, the role of her adversary is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and he – an equally brilliant actor – has a penchant for playing slightly seedy, morally ambiguous characters. So, though the topic was ‘doubt’, I was aware that I was already predisposed to root for Meryl’s school principal and suspect Hoffman’s Fr Flynn.

Thirdly, there is no doubting the setting for this movie; the community of nuns in question is not some generic ‘black and white’ order (think Bergman in ‘The Bells of St Mary’s) – this is emphatically Elizabeth Anne Seton’s Sisters of Charity of New York, immediately recognisable in their widows’ bonnets. Throughout the film, Elizabeth’s image recurs; the statue in the garden, the picture in the Principal’s office. The Vincentian in me was already standing firmly with the Sisters.

A fourth phenomenon unfolded with the film; when it became clear that this was also a battle between a man and a woman, between a priest and a nun, between superiors and subjects, I knew where my sympathies lay – and where they were meant to lie. There is a scene where, entering Aloysius’ office, Flynn automatically takes his seat in her chair, behind her desk; on her territory, he assumes superiority and authority as by right. This is the patriarchal, authoritarian, Church-as-institution made flesh. You cannot side with it. We know too much now about the faults and scandals of that Church to be sympathetic to it. Flynn’s affability and bonhomie is revealed as a mask and when, in a later interview, he rants that she should have followed the proper channels (the clerical ones) in pursuing her ends and making her suspicions known, he has lost the battle; we know what has happened when those routes were followed.

Yet, towering over all of these is the most significant aspect of the film. There is no doubt that Sr Aloysius is accusing Fr Flynn of abusing a boy (Joseph Foster) and, in the world in which we live, that is a topic about which it is well nigh impossible to remain neutral. Too much has happened in these past decades for this to be a subject which one can view from a neutral, unprejudiced viewpoint. The boy is the first, and only, African-American in the school and, as such, is somewhat isolated. We know that vulnerable children make easy targets.

The film is adapted from a stage play and, in film, the slightest movement –which might well go unnoticed on stage or be seen by only a few - can be highlighted for all. Early in the film, Fr Flynn touches the arm of a boy (Mike Loukis as William London) who visibly recoils from the touch. Another boy is seen to be angry and disturbed, close to tears for no apparent reason (Lloyd Clay Brown as Jimmy Hurley). There are signs, not always subtle, that things are not right in Fr Flynn’s relationship with his class. I wanted Flynn to be innocent, I wanted Sr Aloysius to be wilfully misinterpreting what she saw but I knew that I had already decided that he was guilty mere minutes into the film. Interestingly, my companion at the film, a woman, had decided that Flynn was innocent (for her, the signs of guilt were there as ‘red herrings’) but, because of his arrogance and his treatment of both of the Sisters, she wanted him to be guilty.

On the other hand, Aloysius, though she is a harridan, is still a sympathetic character; her subtle gentleness with old near-blind Sr Veronica (Alice Drummond) revealed by a mere gesture early in the movie, is made explicit later; if the priests know that Veronica is blind, she will be dismissed from the parish and sent into retirement. Even when Sr James rails against Aloysius as a ‘jailor’, insisting the children are terrified and fear her, we are made to see the humour in the situation; Aloysius says that that is how it is meant to be, that the children expect it. We see the little smile on her lips, we know that children do appreciate just discipline, we realise that this is a front…and, like Sr James, we temper our view of her; she is no monster. Her discipline protects the children, Flynn’s camaraderie endangers them.

When she meets the young boy’s mother (Viola Davis) we experience her righteous indignation at the mother who seems willing to tolerate anything as long as her son can stay in the school. Yet, when Mrs Miller indicates that the boys father is aggressive to him, suspecting his son of being homosexual, an understanding seems to blossom between the two women. Aloysius won’t let go of her certainty but her approach is tempered. In the end, she echoes Mrs Davis’ words; ‘It’s just ‘til June’. We see in that exchange too that she is no mere ‘observer’ of family life; Aloysius is a war widow, we understand that she has more in common with this mother than her habit would imply and that she has loved, perhaps ardently. Though an older woman, she cannot be more that 10 or 15 years in community.

The play, I think, allows for more ambiguity about whether she is justified in her conviction; a play depends mostly on words, on interaction between characters and on more ‘generalised’ action. In a film, the Director directs not just the film but your attention; you are shown what to pay attention to, what to exclude. Although the play ends with a greater sense of doubt, the film, though it seeks to honour that ambivalence, cannot do so. We are not told that Fr Flynn is guilty but, reader, I was sure he was!

There is a wonderful central scene between Aloysius and Fr Flynn. She meets him in her office, in the presence of Sr James (Amy Adams), the sister who first brings her suspicions to the attention of her superior. The affable Fr Flynn gets more and more irate, hedges his answers more and more, becomes more and more aggressive. The mask is slipping, the inner viciousness emerging. Though Sr James comes to believe him, we see her as naïve. Amy Adams has a wonderful quality as an ingénue but it makes it difficult for us to take her view of Flynn too seriously.

So, then, does the film fail as a narrative? Well, if you insist on focussing on the question of guilt, then, yes, I think that, in large part, it does; we may not like Aloysius’ methods but there is little real doubt that she is right. The danger though is that we read this film as little more than an ecclesiastical ‘whodunnit’ with the action centred on abuse rather than the more usual murder. We know ‘he dunnit’ and there isn’t even a satisfying Poirot-like unfolding of the evidence at the denouement. He did it and she was sure he did it but she can’t really justify her certainty beyond stating it; she cannot ‘state her case and bring her proofs’. If this is how we view the story-line, then it can’t really fail to disappoint us.

But the film is, I think, important for an entirely different reason. In this age, the great sin (as Fr Flynn underlines for us) is ‘intolerance’ and its ally, ‘certitude’.  We might root for Sr Aloysius but her sense of unambiguous, unquestioning certainty is frightening. In our age, when consensus and the wisdom of the group dominate, her old-fashioned (Old Testament), ‘myself-against-the-world’ certitude makes us uncomfortable. It asks us about the certainty in our lives. Flynn speaks, in an opening homily, about doubt linking us as surely as faith does; we are a brother- and sisterhood of doubters. While we may recognise his guilt, we cannot help sympathising with this view. In our post-modern world (whatever post-modern may mean) doubt is the one certainty. Respect for difference is a paramount virtue, tolerance an absolute.  To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, ‘the one thing it is permissible to be intolerant of is intolerance’, the one group of people I may be prejudiced against with impunity is those who are prejudiced.

Yet faith requires something of Aloysius’ certainty. The religious life is not based on mere attraction or expediency and Religious Life, consecrated to the Lord, is not simply a matter of functional effectiveness but is founded on a conviction. The question I found myself asking was; ‘do I want to share this sense of certainty, do I want to be that sure?’

What is unsettling too is that, while he may be morally repugnant, Flynn speaks with the voice of today. Aloysius sees virtue in the structures and strictures of the past. She patrols the pews at Mass, hissing corrections at recalcitrant schoolboys, while Fr Flynn speaks honeyed words. She is almost a caricature of the old-style nun yet, beneath the glasses and the habit is a will of iron. She is coldly and baldly honest; when he asks her if she has ever committed a mortal sin she does not dissemble – she answers with a direct ‘Yes’. She says that she would hold to her position even if the doors of the Church should slam shut behind her. Hers is the faith of the martyr that will carry her past the jaws of death.

Yet, here is the key, she believes in both confession and redemption and, drawing from her past experience, she also believes that he will seek neither; he will return to his abusive ways. She is harsh but is not cold vengeance, it is the abrasive harshness of lye, stripping off dross and pretence. She is a rebel with a cause.

Sr James says to her at the end that she wishes that she had Aloysius’ certainty and we may echo the sentiment but, in truth, hers is an uncomfortable position. She is uncompromising, trusting herself and her experience though there is little concrete evidence to support it and though those she might look to for support (Sr James, the boy’s mother, the faceless church authorities) will not or cannot stand with her. Again and again in the film, we see the winds of change (literally) flapping about her; the window that someone mysteriously and consistently leaves open in her office is a metaphor for the seismic changes in both Church and society in the 60s. And still, Aloysius holds her ground.  Deepest of all is the recognition that the cost of such moral certainty is crippling doubts about the faith; the comfort that faith may seem to offer is lost to her – symbolised as she hides her Rosary under her cape. She has to stand her ground without even the conviction that God stands with her. Aloysius is, in many ways, the embodiment of the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ and that is a kind of language, a type of experience, an expression of faith that we (I) are not comfortable with these days. We might aspire to her courage but most of us, like Sr James, will settle for a tidier solution and will avoid the eye of the storm.

It is an uncomfortable film to watch, it does not seek easy resolution and it eschews any facile reconciliation of deeply opposed opposites. It is, still, however, a film you should watch…and you will need to watch it more than once.

Finally, a little thought; the film ends with the usual disclaimer that the all characters and events are fictitious and not based on actual events. But the ‘technical advisor’ to the film was Sr Margaret McEntee, Sister of Charity, and it is to her that the film is dedicated. And Margaret McEntee used to be called Sr James, Shanley’s own first-grade teacher in the school in the Bronx on which St Nicholas is based (with the Sisters actual chapel taking the role of the Parish Church).