Streep and Hoffman performances elevate 'Doubt'

Director: John Patrick Shanley

Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Amy Adams

With two of Hollywood’s greatest actors – Streep and Hoffman – pitted against one another you know what to expect in Shanley’s screen version of his own Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play … a highly-charged clash of personalities.

The story is set in the rapidly-changing 1960s in a Catholic school in the Bronx, ruled over by the iron-fisted Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Streep), to which comes the more liberal, laid-back Father Flynn (Hoffman), to upset the conventions.

When the young and innocent Sister James (Adams) passes her suspicions about Flynn’s abuse of a young student to Beauvier – suspicions based on no proof whatsoever – the scene is set for bitter confrontation.

The film, containing as it does two towering performances of masterclass proportions, retains the feel of its stage origins.

However, it is too often prone to moralising about religion and responsibility, about the old, strict ways of Beauvier and the ‘new age’ ways of the more popular Flynn, a decent man who might, or might not, have strayed.

But it is, still, a brilliant piece of cinematic art, specially in the set-piece clashes of Streep and Hoffman.

Star Rating: 4/5