Doubt comes to Irish cinemas with some serious credentials; four Oscar nominations for the four main roles and one for John Patrick Shanley’s adaptation of his own play. The fact that it won none of them, says more for our need for a happy ending than it does about the quality of this sombre piece of work.

Set in a 1960′s New York Catholic school, this study of suffocating repression, iron-fisted will and the unexpected humanity beneath, is all about Meryl. It is amazing to think she was dancing on a bed and singing to Pierce Brosnan just six months ago. Here, she is headmistress, Sr Aloysius, with all of the compassion of an arctic winter. Indeed her entrance is as foreboding as that of Darth Vader 30 years ago.

If Meryl is the main course of this cinematic equivalent of a gourmet meal, she is accompanied deliciously by the wonderful Philip Seymour Hoffman as a progressive priest who is the fly in her ointment. Fr Flynn is a witty, charming priest who gets on well with the school’s children. However, is he taking too much interest in one student in particular, the school’s only African American pupil?

When Sr James, played by Amy Adams, comes to Sr Aloysius with her suspicions, the older nun sees this as her chance to rid the school of this progressive priest. Is she hunting Fr Flynn due to her absolute belief that he is guilty or to rid herself of an annoying reminder of just how out of touch she is? Whatever the reason Sr Aloysius relishes in something people of the cloth are assumed to have – faith. Doubt is not an option.

It is only when Sr Aloysius meets with the mother of the student at the centre of all of this, that she is shaken. Here is the person she thought would be her moral cheerleader, someone who would absolve her of the responsibility to assume innocence until proven otherwise. In a single scene which earned her an Oscar nomination, Viola Davies does what many have failed to do – she acts Meryl off the screen. It is to Streep’s credit that she lets her.

There are faults, though. Some will be annoyed that more questions are asked than answered. Plus it is obvious that this was a play; it never really moves like a film should – it plods, ponderously filmed in autumnal browns and is directed with a heavy hand by its writer, Shanley. It’s almost as if he was surrounded with such excellent ators that he let them get on with it and concentrated on opening a box of cliches labelled ‘creating an atmosphere’. There is the portent of a storm, boughs breaking off trees, a bulb keeps blowing, a window opening. It’s obvious why he wasn’t nominated for the golden dude.

All in all, this isn’t a perfect film but, if you love acting, it is unmissable.

Doubt’s IMBD Page

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