A-list film adaptation offers shadow of a Doubt
John Patrick Shanley’s acclaimed play struggles on-screen even with the likes of Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Opens Fri., Dec. 19.
In John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, a hard-line nun suspects a progressive young priest of committing improprieties with an altar boy. Their close quarters, cat-and-mouse confrontations and rich, pertinent discussions about the flaws of blind faith helped earn Doubt the Pulitzer for Best Play.
Many of the traits that make Doubt a great play inhibit it from becoming a great movie. Shanley directs his own adaptation to mixed results. Doubt’s setting, a Bronx church and middle school in 1964, looks exactly the way theater-goers would’ve imagined it. Shanley clearly has his dream cast, including Meryl Streep as old school Sister Aloysius, Philip Seymour Hoffman as passionate but enigmatic Father Flynn and Amy Adams as the naïve young nun who vacillates between them.