Doubt - The Movie (My Review)

Originally, Doubt was a play that was developed for Broadway but it success brought it to the silver screen following the steps of Chicago, Frost/Nixon and other plays as well as musicals.

The movie starts with a church sermon being given by Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to the congregation about "doubt". And that's the theme that follows the entire plot of the movie from beginning to end.

Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) is the Principal of a fist-tight run junior high school where a very naive Sister James (Amy Adams) works as a teacher. Sister Aloysius is a very old fashioned principal thinking that 'ballpoint' pens are evil and listening to the radio is even more evil. When one day Sister Aloysius witness strange behavior from Father Flynn, she recruits Sister James to find out what is going on.

The movie lives to its name quite well. There is always a cloud of 'doubt' over everything that happens and you don't know if any allegations or accusations are factual or not. The plot keeps you guessing for the next few hours... who to believe???

The plot is very well developed by the writer of the screenplay as well as the movie. And needless to say, the acting of all the major characters are just fantastic; deserving every single nomination and award given to them.

My only distraction: there is a scene between Meryl Streep and Viola Davis (Mrs. Miller) which is a pivotal point of the movie. The only issue is that when Viola Davis is giving her very moving and emotional speech, her nose starts to run... and I don't mean a little bit... it was a waterfall of mucus going doing her nose into her mouth. The close up in the movie screen of her face did not help either. Even Meryl Streep did not look at her directly. And when she tried to wipe it off, it got worst. It makes you loose sense of what's happening and listening to what Mrs. Miller is saying. I actually kept wiping my own nose through the entire scene!

The director should have done another "take" with less distracting mucus is the scene.

However, the movie deserves all of the attention is getting and then some.