Doubt

In the ambitious dramatic parable “Doubt” the movie raises many questions about certainty in a time of great uncertainty.  Based on a four character play the script deals with the accusation of an inappropriate relationship a priest has with a 12-year old boy.  Doubt," John Patrick Shanley's award-winning play about a nun, a priest, and the unseemly accusation that puts them at each other's throats, has been reimagined as a more cinematic truth.  Controversy in a catholic school swirls around every scene diligently giving close ups to Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep.  We are in a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, where Sister Aloysius, as principal, runs the operation with a proverbial iron fist. She's trying to instill vigilance in Sister James (Amy Adams), her hopelessly kind youngest teacher.  These characters serve as archetypes of our own moral code in a belief we have to “know” the truth.  Certainty can be our greatest enemy when we only have our instinct to decipher deceptions.  At the heart of “Doubt” there is no answer that will satisfy anyone because the damage has already been done. Our minds can play tricks on us when we believe without a doubt that the truth is clear.  No one in the movie sees what happens between the boy and the priest, but our feelings overwhelm our lack of evidence to arrive to a conclusion of guilt.  For many people their fear is their moral compass to which all infringements of righteousness must be acted upon.  Faith does not create doubt because it oppresses the feeling of insecurity with an over whelming sense of punishment by law. Good people give off good vibes because they are decent human beings believing in truth of faith.  That statement seems to be the ideal of poor Sister James because she is the lamb caught between two hungry wolves with their own agendas.  Sister Aloysius shows no mercy in bringing down her evil because she has no doubt in its plaguing lies.  Doubt will resonate with you long after the movie is over because there is uncertainty at its own heart.  We do our best to resolve the story as it were and once you realize that you are in the belly of the beast only your true affirmation in one’s own belief will set you free.