THE marvelous Meryl Streep is frighteningly good as Sister Aloysius, the fire-breathing principal of a 1964 Bronx parochial school in John Patrick Shanley’s powerful but stagy “Doubt.”
Streep will no doubt score her record 13th Oscar nomination as Best Actress for Sister Aloysius, who declares war on the parish priest, Father Brendan. Played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, Brendan appears more than ready for the battle.
Already suspicious of the priest’s embrace of the Vatican II reforms in his liberal sermons, the archly conservative sister – who finds ballpoint pens a newfangled abomination – senses ammunition when the naive Sister James (Amy Adams) tells her that the school’s first black student, an altar boy, returned from the rectory with the smell of alcohol on his breath.
Sister Aloysius quickly concludes that her nemesis behaved improperly with Donald Miller (Joseph Foster II). And so might a contemporary audience that has heard countless stories of sexual abuse by priests over the past decade.
But Shanley’s Pulitzer-winning play – which he has adapted for the screen and also directed – is called “Doubt” for a reason.
The movie’s crux is Sister Aloysius trying to pin down the charming priest – and it’s impossible to figure out from the text or Hoffman’s skillful performance whether he’s guilty as charged or merely the victim of the sister’s witch hunt. (Shanley hasn’t denied speculation that the play is an allegory about the run-up to our current war in Iraq.)
Father Brendan admits taking a special interest in the boy, who is in a difficult situation because of his race. But he’s admitting nothing, even as the sister’s efforts to compel a confession escalate.
While Hoffman is warmer here than in any previous screen role, Streep (stepping in for Cherry Jones, who created the role onstage) dominates the proceedings except for a single amazing scene.
It involves not the priest, but a conversation between the sister and the boy’s mother (Viola Davis) as they walk outside on a winter day.
The mother announces a revelation that stuns the seemingly unflappable sister into momentary silence – and, in her single scene, Davis acts Streep right off the screen.
“Doubt” is a feast of great acting, although in the final analysis it’s a filmed stage play rather than a brilliant movie.
Among other things, Shanley, directing for the first time since the unfortunate “Joe Versus the Volcano” nearly two decades ago, badly overworks the metaphoric winds that howl outside the school.
DOUBT Acting duel in The Bronx. Running time: 104 minutes. Rated PG-13 (references to pedophilia). At the Cinema 1, the Lincoln Square, the Chelsea and the Angelika.