Doubt

John Patrick Shanley puts his good Catholic name to the test in this story about a priest, a nun, an altar boy and some sacramental wine. Philip Seymour Hoffman is seamless as Father Brendan Flynn, a kindly priest who’s accused of being too kindly by Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep). There are at least three stories occurring simultaneously: one about an attempt at making the church a more loving place, another about the brutal subordination of women, and a third about the possible sexual abuse of a child. But mostly, the film is about what the title says: doubt. Shanley’s witty script pulls off a level of ambiguity rarely seen outside of Ari Fleischer’s cerebral cortex. Neither Father Flynn nor Sister Beauvier is a villain, and both of them are characters who are deeper than the Marianas Trench and more complicated than John Yoo’s justification for torture. And I’m out of similes. Just go see this movie.