Doubt caught me off guard and was almost terrific. I don’t know why I had such low expectations given the amazing cast. Hoffman obviously steals the show, as Streep, while still very very good, felt to me like she was retreading her role in The Devil Wears Prada. This movie is a great demonstration of an argument. The whole thing is basically about an argument, and how gossip and absence of proof can magnify tiny things. A priest holds a few private meetings with the lone black boy at a Catholic school, one of which ends with the boy’s breath smelling like alcohol, which sets in motion a chain of events that make a great example of how to not seek the truth. The central sermon in the film about gossip is spectacular, equating the act to scattered feathers with a beautiful, if unnecessary, visualization of what he is speaking about.
There are a couple of scenes, though, that almost pushed the film off the rails. The first was the scene involving the boy’s mother, played by Viola Davis. I’ve been hearing rumors that Davis steals the show, that her one scene shames everyone else in the film, and this just isn’t true. I think that she completely overacts in this, just like she does in Soderberg’s Solaris. Her dialogue was poorly written, too, jumbling up what might have been an interesting development into a convoluted, ‘what the hell is she getting at’ rant that sounded ridiculous coming from a mother who has just been informed that a priest may be seducing her son. Most people in my theatre, including myself, were laughing at this.
And the other scene that doesn’t work is, unfortunately, the final scene, which left me with a worse taste in my mouth than this film deserved. This scene involves Streep, in which her character makes a couple of confessions of her own, one of which clearly tries to sum up the film with a bright beautiful bow, how all of the characters experience Doubt in the film. I would have been fine with the film ending with Hoffman’s third and final sermon of the film, which was better acted and written than Streep’s scene. All in all though, a nice, ambiguous portrait of three religious people trying to prove things that they have no means of proving. This is a very frustrating situation to be in, and that frustration that I felt very much while watching it.