Doubt (2008)

Intolerance and Vocation

CLASSIFICATION     CP Catholic Patronage

RATING     Five of 5 Stars

Distributed by Miramax Films (released on 25 December 2008)

104 minutes

 

The Film

Doubt is the film adaptation of John Patrick Shanley’s stage play Doubt: A Parable, written in 2004, originally staged off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club on 23 November 2004, and winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Shanley writes and directs. It receives five Academic Awards nominations on 22 January 2009, and racks best actress and best supporting actress in eight awarding bodies.

 

The Preview

 

The Story

The film opens with her mother waking up Jimmy, an altar boy in the nearby church, to prepare to go to church early for that Sunday’s Mass. Donald Miller (Joseph Foster), another altar boy and the nearby school’s first black student, arrived just in time for the Mass to start. In the service, Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) gives a sermon on the nature of doubt. While the mass is going on, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), the strict principal of the parochial school, notices students whispering among each other or sleeping; so she stood up and slapped them to proper behavior. After the  mass, Miller approaches Fr. Flynn and tells him that he wants to be a priest like Fr. Flynn.

The following day and during the history class of Sister James (Amy Adams), Sr. Aloysius performs an inspection of the students and catches one child wearing an earphone while attending class. That evening she discusses the sermon with her fellow nuns of the Sisters of Charity of New York. And she expresses concern that something wrong might have happened around the place to merit the homily on doubt. She asks if anyone has observed unusual behavior to give Fr. Flynn cause for the preaching, and instructs them to keep their eyes open.

Fr. Flynn teaches Physical Education for boys in that school. Being so, he is close to the boys whom he once in a while treats with some glass of juice and talk about dancing with girls. One night the priest, with the bishop and another priest, had supper talking about a fat mother and laughing their heart out at it.

Sr. James, a young and naive teacher, observes the closeness between Fr. Flynn and Donald. One day during her class, she receives a call from the priest asking for Donald in the rectory. Sometime later, while watching the dancing class in the gym, she sees the priest place something in Donald’s locker. When she checks, it turns out to be the boy’s wet white undershirt. That afternoon, she told Sr. Aloysius of the incident in the classroom; and that when Donald returns to class, he looked “very frightened and puts his hands on the desk in a most peculiar way.” She smelled alcohol on his breath.

The following week, Fr. Flynn talks to a boy outside the principal’s office for talking in his class. Under the pretext of discussing the upcoming Christmas pageant, Sisters Aloysius and James confront the priest with their suspicions that his relationship with Donal may be inappropriate. The priest tells them to leave the matter alone as a private issue between the boy and himself. But the principal insists. So the priest relents, telling the nuns that the boy had been caught drinking altar wine. He had promised Donald not to tell anyone about the incident, and that he could remain an altar boy. Now, forced to break the promise, the Fr. Flynn tells Sr. Aloysius that he needs to dismiss Donald as an altar boy. The priest tells the principal that he is disappointed in the way she handles the issue.

Sr. James on the other hand feels relief, convinced that Fr. Flynn is innocent. But Sr. Aloysius remains unshakable with her suspicion.

In the following Sunday’s Mass, Fr. Flynn tells a story of a gossip-mongering woman who died and went to God. As a penitence for her misdeeds, God tells her to open up a pillow on her rooftop, throw away the feathers into the wind, and then collect all the feathers back into the pillow.

In the church’s ground after the Mass, Sr. James confronts Fr. Flynn about the undershirt she saw him leave in Donald’s locker, something she did not reveal to the principal. The priest tells her he found it in the sacristy and wanted not to embarrass the boy some more. They discuss their common loves for the children. Sr. James’ doubt receives assurance. And Fr. Flynn asks her not to let anyone destroy her compassion. After that Fr. Flynn makes some effort to avoid Donald.

The principal sends for Donald’s mother to reveal her suspicions. And Fr. Flynn discovers it. Mrs. Miller (Viola Davis) learns that Donald has been removed as an altar boy. But she shocks the nun when the mother asks her that the matter may not be pursued further because the boy only has until the end of teh school year (two months more to go) before going to a better high school. Mrs. Miller hints the nun of Donald’s homosexuality and teh physical abuse he suffered from his father. She begs the nun to drop teh matter, and rationalizes that Donald’s relationship with the priest protects him from his father and enhances his chances of going to college.

Despite having no evidence, Sr. Aloysius demands that Fr. Flynn tells the truth or she will go to his superiors. He repeats that there is no illicit relationship. But the nun conjures a story about his problems, having been moved to three different parishes in five years. And that she knows details from another nun in one of his previous parishes, which she refuses to identify. The priest was furious for her not contacting the parish priest instead, and breaking the accepted protocol of getting reliable information. She demands that he resigns. Unable to put up more to her willingness to destroy his reputation, the priest succumbs to her demands.

In his final Mass, Fr. Flynn talks about providential call that leads a person to wherever the spirit wants him to. After the sermon, Sr. Aloysius tells Sr. James that although Fr. Flynn has left, he is also appointed pastor at St. Jerome’s Church; in effect, a promotion. She admits to Sr. James that she lied about speaking to a nun at his former parish.

Sr. Aloysius concludes that one also pays a price for pursuing wrongdoing.

The film ends as Sister Aloysius breaks down into tears and she tells the younger nun that she has such doubt.

 

 The Review

Doubt is a complex movie of human motives as teh intention of uncovering the truth turned into a misguided quest for retribution based on a lie and twisted with pride. The story is tragic on the aprt of a priest who may have gained something towards reforming himself from a past clouded with a question on misdemeanor. But like any story of other people’s lives, there is always uncertainty because no one will ever know what is in a person’s heart.

Sin can be justified as a means to something good. Sr. Aloysius has naturally signed up to the idea that it is alright to commit sin in order to uncover wrongdoings of other people. The nun, who used to be a wife, operates with the usual reticence of pride which does not allow the possibility that she made a mistake, and prefers instead to destroy a priest’s reputation to admit her own mistake on the issue.

Pride can turn something good into something remorseful. Sister Aloysius, an inherently mistrustful and suspiciois character of a nun, started ti right to seek what happened in order to protect her student. That is part of her job as the principal. But her intrigue-predisposed mind overdid it by following her gut feeling, and let pride sets in to make her feel so self-righteous to plot for the downfall of the priest based on a lie not of the truth. Has she really wanted to know the truth and sought for it, she may find out something entirely different. In a way, she did not want to find out something different, something that contradicts what she believes in. She startedwith a desire to know the truth and ends up embracing a lie.

Pride led Sr. Aloysius to act on her own authority, breaking away from the established syste that governs proper way of placing a complain on a priest’s suspected behavior, violated her vow of obedience, and her vocation was in tatters.

A taste of sugar may make pleasures uncontrollable. Sr. Aloysius epitomizes an ultraconservative albeit undiscriminating attitude towards non-harmful pleasures of life such as a tasty food (use of three spoons of sugar in a coffee), convenience in writing (use of ball-point pens). She believes that what is pleasurable and easy can be come a beginnign in the breakdown of moral fiber. While this cautious approach to disipline of the body is philosophically valid, its application to things that requires no moral justification makes it so cold that it can stifle even teh good feelings associated with loving and compassion. And she has ceased to be loving and compassionate, way back her story starts.

Seggregationist beliefs alienates as well as hurts. The film proposes that even religous people may not be immune to their brand of seggreagationism, be it racism or not. And any action can be defended with intelligent arguments. What the sister did not know was the burden that Donald carry, which may have pushed him self-destruct–do something so bad that the school will expel him, relieving him on the pressure brought about his being black.

A mother’s care can be a stabilizing factor to a son. The love of a mother breathes out in the statement of Mrs. Miller–“I’ll be standing with my son and those who are good to my son; and I hope you’ll be standing with me there. This all-consuming love for her boy, shielded Mrs. Miller from the intrigues started by Sr. Aloysius.

 

The Verdict

Doubt  is a movie about intolerance, a subtle form of pride through an ego-centered self-righteousness, and the doubt it can bring into a person’s vocation in life. The film exlores the workings of pride in a Christian life, and the fruits of this cardinal sin–intolerance, untruthfulness, scandal-mongering, intrigue-making, and many more. It is a great movie for Catholics to watch and contemplate.

Reviewed by Zosimo Literatus

 

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