Doubt

Father Brendan Flynn: Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty. When you are lost, you are not alone.

People can be so certain about their convictions about others that unless they can pear into their minds and read them, they will not be convinced of the truth about another’s true motives and actions when a conflict arises. But even if one could pear into another’s mind, it would not necessarily mean they would discover the truth about the situation. Take Merlin Jones for example.

He developed the ability to read others thoughts and while waiting tables at the restaurant where he worked, he happens to overhear the thoughts of the judge who took away his drivers license. He heard the judge plotting a crime and where the missing diamonds were hidden that the police were looking for. After tearing through his prized flower garden to find these jewels and getting the police to come knocking at his door he finds out that he was mistaken about the guilt of the judge. He overheard the judge plotting a crime in his mind, but it was about the plot of his new novel and not about a real life crime.

When I first read about ‘Doubt’, I thought it was an anti-Catholic slam about the church. I assumed that it was anti-Catholic because a great many films made nowadays love to take the sexual abuse scandal and use that as a litmus test as to why the Catholic Church is evil. After all the Catholic Church has a secret army of assassin albino monks protecting the truth about Jesus hidden in the Mona Lisa and who help the church to sever the souls of children and who align themselves with armored polar bears.

Instead of an bad Mystery Science 3000 sappy anti-Catholic drama starring Bill Maher , what we get is a psychological thinking, scratch your head, well-acted drama centering around three people who happen to be Catholic, two nuns and a priest. It is 1964, the time in which the second Vatican Council was in session. Father Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is a good mannered friendly priest who loves the people in his Bronx New York (home of super priest Fr. Benedict Groeschel), parish and school especially the boys that he ministers to. Sister Aloysius ( Meryl Streep) is the strict old fashion hardcore principal nun that will hit you in the back of the head if you misbehave. She is weary of kids who use ballpoint pens, of those who put three lumps of sugar into their tea and believes that Frosty the Snowman is too pagan even to be played on the radio. She is suspicious of everything and everyone. Sister James ( Enchanted and beautiful Amy Adams) rounds out the major players as innocent and good natured nun who believes in the good of all people and who happens to like Frosty the Snowman.

Sister Aloysius doesn’t like Father Flynn’s attention being directed towards Donald Miller, the schools only black student who also happens to be an alter boy. She has Sister James spy on Father Flynn and one plot point leads to another and Father Flynn is accused way before the mess in Boston of being sexually inappropriate with the boy and of giving him wine to drink. The rest of the film deals with the clash between Father Flynn and Sister Aloysius with poor sister James caught in the middle.

Father Brendan Flynn: You haven't the slightest proof of anything!
Sister Aloysius Beauvier: But I have my certainty!

Sister Aloysius believes that the little she has seen is enough to convince her that she is right and that he is wrong. Is what she heard enough? Is what she seen enough? Like Merlin Jones, what she actually sees maybe not be the correct interpretation of the event. Leonard Shelby from Memento reminds us, “Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts. Facts, not memories. That's how you investigate.” The statement is quite ironic from whom it is coming from. But it would take another whole essay to explain it, but the quote fits what I’m trying to say.

This is the type of film you want to see with another person because after wards you want to ask someone who saw it, “Do you think he was innocent or guilty”? Did he sexually abuse the boy, OR is the Head Nun just a little too suspicious and over reactionary. The beauty of a film like this is that it never tells you who is right and who is wrong. It gives you evidence that could convict either side as right or wrong. You the jury must decide innocent or guilty. I thought he was innocent. So did a co-worker of mine. But his girlfriend and another co-worker both thought he was guilty.

Those who like straightforward stories with all the answers or escapist movies, please watch the three stooges or any number of Walt Disney films, this is a movie for people who really like to think or construct puzzles. The movie actually deserves repeated viewings because like ogres it has many layers and too much symbolism to catch in a single viewing. If your doubting ‘Doubt’ is a worthwhile film to spend your viewing time and dollars on, have no doubts about ‘Doubt’ and add it to your list of worthwhile films to see and enjoy.

This has been a NormalMe StoryBlazers Review