A Better Movie This Year? Doubt It.

Yesterday's movie in my continuing procession of movies was Doubt. This is another movie adapted from a play, again by the playwright himself. What's more, in this case the playwright also was the director of the film version.

Starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams, Doubt is set in a Catholic middle school in the 1960s. A priest (Hoffman) may have had an inappropriate relationship with one of the students, and the principal and head nun of the school (Streep) is trying to get to the bottom of the situation and see the priest expelled.

This is, quite simply, about as close to perfectly made as a movie can be. The script is absolutely magnificent, worthy of study by anyone who wants to write for the stage or screen. Absolutely every single moment, every detail, is carefully considered in how it will serve the whole. Any extraneous bits were cleared away in earlier drafts.

There's scathing dialogue between characters with crystal clear motivations. There's briliant use of juxtaposition (such as a moment when we smash cut from a rowdy dinner party hosted by the priest to the utter silence of the nuns gathered at their dinner table). There's still more brilliant use of metaphor (such as the placement of candy store temptingly across the street from the school, or the timely flaring out of a light bulb during tense moments of the film).

The directing and photography of the film is equally meticulous. Camera angles are constantly chosen in ways that underscore the power relationships in a scene. Light and shadow play powerful roles in key moments.

The acting in the film is stellar across the board. Hoffman portrays the priest as so very likable. You don't want to believe he could be capable of what he's accused of, but he displays just enough savvy to allow some possibility that it could be true. Streep is wonderful as the severe principal, inspiring fear as a way to respect, making the moments when she lets down her guard even more powerful. Amy Adams is also superb as one of the school teachers who we see lose her innocence scene by scene as the movie progresses.

Perhaps strongest of all is the performance of Viola Davis, who plays just two scenes in the film as the mother of the boy the priest may have molested. In the past, Oscar nominations (even wins) have been on occasion given to performers with very little screen time. Often, these just seem like nods in praise of an actor's long and esteemed career that has somehow gone Oscar-less, for work that ultimately is nowhere as good as the past performances for which they were overlooked. Not so here. In her 10 minutes of screen time, Davis dominates the movie. Her character breaks your heart and makes you look at the entire affair from an altogether different and unexpected perspective. She's already been nominated by both the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes for this role, and I have yet to see a more deserving performance.

I save the greatest aspect of the movie -- among so many great ones -- for last. This surrounds the final reel of the film, and you may want to skip on to the next paragraph if you haven't seen it. The real triumph of the film is that it ends in a perfect statement of its title -- doubt. It is unclear by the conclusion of the film whether the priest actually did anything wrong. He may be guilty, or he may simply have given up the fight after seeing that his adversary clearly never would. And the final line by Streep's character, "I have doubts," puts another layer on the proceedings. In my interpretation, she's not at all doubting herself or what she did. She's not doubting her God. She's doubting her church. She's given her life to serve the institution, and yet it allows the sort of thing that has just happened -- and in her mind, it even rewards it.

Incredibly powerful stuff. In many ways, this movie covers similar territory as another film (and play) that I've held in some esteem for a while: David Mamet's Oleanna. But I feel that Doubt is a far more skillful presentation of a "he said/she said" dilemma, one that can far more legitimately be seen either way. Other movies may elicit more emotion in the viewer. A few may even make the viewer think more. But only a handful are such skillful displays of craftsmanship -- from all involved -- as this one.

I give Doubt an enthusiastic A.