25 Days: DOUBT

For many, the Holiday Season is a time when all seems right in the world, as the humanity of the world is revealed in a season of giving and time with loved ones.  For a great many as well, whether its evident or not, it can be a time for doubt, where the course that once seemed so certain, just might lead you astray in the real world...

DOUBT    (DRAMA, 2008)
Directed by John Patrick Shanley
Starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Viola Davis, Joseph Foster, Alice Drummond
PG-13 for thematic elements.
Naughty or Nice?: Thoroughly Ambiguous
Religious or Secular?: Religious
Cynical or Sentimental?: Cynical
Holiday Relations: Christmas Holds an Incidental/Atmospheric Role
OVERALL: 3.5 out of 4

DOUBT is set in Bronx in 1964 at the Sisters of Charity of New York Catholic school, adjoined to the local church, where the compassionate and progressive Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) serves as parish priest.  Sister Aloysius serves as principal of the school, which she governs through a fearsome and tyrannical reputation of unforgiving intolerance.  Father Flynn and Sister Aloysius are as opposite as can be, a fact not unnoticed by Aloysius, who instructs her nuns to keep a close eye on the activities of Flynn.  Sister James (Amy Adams), a kindly and naive young nun who teaches the eighth grade class is at the center of the battle between these two figures, as Sister Aloysius insists that Sister James maintain a tight grip on her class and to send any troublemakers immediately to her office, while Father Flynn urges her to protect her innocent compassion and not succumb to the disciplinary tactics of Aloysius.  When Sister James takes note of a particular closeness between Father Flynn and Donald Miller, the school's first and only black student and altar boy, and especially after she witnesses the Father discreetly placing an undershirt in Donald's locker, Sister James reports her hesitant suspicions to Sister Aloysius.  Aloysius is quick in her resolve that Father Flynn is instigating an inappropriate relationship with the altar boy, but Flynn is reluctantly but readily able to provide an explanation of his innocence, but Aloysius is unshaken, even while Sister James is relieved and satisfied.  Aloysius continues her crusade to have Father Flynn exposed for an unspecified, unsuitable relationship to Donald, but is blocked at every turn, while Flynn is infuriated by her blatant attempts to destroy his reputation.
DOUBT is not an easy film; for some it may just confuse, and for a great many others, I'm sure it would be dismissed as a "downer".  For myself, it is a fascinating and relatable study on the nature of human doubt, told through a quartet of powerhouse performances from Hoffman, Streep, Adams and Viola Davis, who plays Mrs. Miller; all four of whom were nominated for Academy Awards for their performances.  The film opens with a sermon by Hoffman as Father Flynn, speaking on 'doubt.'  He tells a story about a sailor who becomes lost at sea, but sets his course by the stars, and yet, as his journey home grows ever more desperate, he begins to doubt that which he knows so well, and whether he is on the right course.  DOUBT is the story of people who have set their course by all that they know, but as the journey goes ever on and on, they struggle with their faith in their own resolves.  As Sister Aloysius says, "In the pursuit of evil, one steps away from God," and yet she is driven as a punisher of all evil she sees, even down to the most benign mischief.  Sister James, on the other hand, is persuaded to pursue evil by Aloysius, but that feeling of stepping away from God to do so, is almost more than she can bear.
We receive no confirmations as to whether or not Aloysius' suspicions of Father Flynn are true.  He is human, and like all humans, is not entirely innocent.  But whatever he has done, despite being ashamed, and maybe even remorseful, he has faith in his own goodness.  There is a strong suggestion that even if Flynn's relationship with Donald is as innocent and proper as he claims, Flynn is probably homosexual, which could be part of his motivation for joining the priesthood.
Viola Davis, who's probably best known for playing Aibileen Clark in THE HELP (2011), makes as much or more of an impact as her distinguished co-stars in only a couple of scenes, playing Donald's mother, an impoverished woman who struggles to get her family by.  Sister Aloysius calls her in for a meeting, and coyly but sternly reveals her suspicions of Father Flynn's relationship with her son.  Yet, Mrs. Miller is eager to drop the matter, and is quite unable to take the moral high ground, whether there is an improper relationship or not.  It's only so many more months until Donald gets to high school, and succeeding at the Sisters of Charity will improve his chances for a better school.  As it is now, Donald is not the lonely and bullied boy that he is because of the color of his skin, but because of his sexuality, which he is just coming into.  Because Donald's nature is no longer a secret from his father, Mr. Miller beats him and abuses him, and whether or not the allegations involving the priest are true, the fact is that Father Flynn is the only comforting and positive male influence in Donald's life.  Davis plays this difficult position with powerful sincerity, holding her own against Ms. Oscar herself.
As a Christmas film, it's a loose fit to that classification, but it does find its story in the midst of the Christmas season, as the school prepares for its annual Christmas pageant, which Father Flynn would like to widen the appeal for by adding a secular song like "Frosty the Snowman" or "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," which is followed up by a very amusing damnation of the former song by Sister Aloysius.  What encourages me to really recognize DOUBT as a Christmas film though, is the very powerful ending, which involves an emotional confession as a choir of "The First Noel" swells in the background.  It's a film that does leave you in doubt, but also provides a reassurance of our bonds of humanity, and human frailties like doubt, in the midst of a Christmas season, where we stand in a delicate balance between the hope of the cultural season, but the dark uncertainty of winter.