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Doubt

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 62 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Mystery
Written by: John Patrick Shanley
Directed by: John Patrick Shanley
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 12, 2008
DVD: April 7, 2009
Running Time: 104 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for thematic material
Starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis
It's 1964, St. Nicholas in the Bronx. A vibrant, charismatic priest, Father Flynn, is trying to upend the school's strict customs, which have long been fiercely guarded by Sister Aloysius Beauvier, the iron-gloved Principal who believes in the power of fear and discipline. The winds of political change are sweeping through the country, and, indeed, the school has just accepted its first black student, Donald Miller. But when Sister James, a hopeful innocent, shares with Sister Aloysius her suspicion that Father Flynn is paying too much personal attention to Donald, Sister Aloysius is galvanized to begin a crusade to both unearth the truth and to expunge Flynn from the school. Now, without a shred of proof or evidence except her moral certainty, Sister Aloysius locks into a battle of wills with Father Flynn, a battle that threatens to tear apart the Church and school with devastating consequences. (Miramax)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
ReelViews James Berardinelli
An intellectually and emotionally exhausting and engrossing experience. It is drama of the highest caliber.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Doubt has exact and merciless writing, powerful performances and timeless relevance. It causes us to start thinking with the first shot, and we never stop. Think how rare that is in a film.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Albert Williams
Streep and Hoffman are pitch-perfect, and Amy Adams is also superb as a young nun caught up in the conflict.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
Doubt is still overpowering; it took me a while when it was over to stop shaking. It's the dramatist’s business to sow doubt, to set down points of view that can't be reconciled, and Shanley makes visceral the notion that one can be right but never absolutely right, that doubt might be our last, best hope.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Matthew Sorrento
Exhausting yet invigorating, it's a drama one witnesses more than just views.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
While Streep has a tiny bit too much fun with some of her character's excesses, she's awfully good. So is Hoffman, who walks a fine line between obvious guilt and possible innocence.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
You may have doubts about which side to choose, but there's no doubt about this mind-bender. It'll pin you to your seat.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
By eloquently probing the state of uncertainty and its accompanying discomfort and confusion, Doubt compels viewers to examine their own assumptions as they become caught up in this fascinating tale.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Doubt is a complex, thematically loaded piece of work, and though it isn't enhanced on film, it deserves the wider exposure.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
It's a splendid ensemble, equal in almost every way to the fine, probing script.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The film's added enigma makes the play's title even more appropriate, but it results in a more ambiguous and perhaps less satisfying dramatic experience.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Along with its disappointments and its narrowness of intellectual focus, Doubt offers up the crackling pleasures of performance and a narrative that snaps shut like a mousetrap. It's the movie equivalent of a rousing night at the theater.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Doubt leaves none in one respect: John Patrick Shanley was the right person to direct this fascinating screen version of his celebrated play.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
There seems to be something about the story itself that's better suited to the stage than the screen.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
A feast of great acting, although in the final analysis it's a filmed stage play rather than a brilliant movie.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Not exactly a tour de force, but the film succeeds on the wattage of its stars.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
The truth is left for the audience to decide. And while the conclusion isn't necessarily clear, it is unsettling.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Blessedly, the kernel of the writing remains undisturbed, and its arguments are still powerful.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
Cinematically, Doubt is something of a dud. But if it remains a play, it's an ingeniously structured one, with smart, thought-provoking words spoken by fabulous actors, and how often do most of us get to see one of those, whether in three dimensions or two?
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Directing the film of Doubt, Shanley is able to put an even finer point on his Tony-and Pulitzer-winning play about suspicion and guilt at a Bronx Catholic grade school in 1964.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Just when you begin to think you know who the cat and mouse really are, in steps Viola Davis to steal not just her scene but the entire movie from Streep.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Shanley seems to have lost a certain amount of faith in what he'd written. As a director he's ended up pushing the drama harder than he needs to. He hasn't done anything fatal, but he has tampered with and hampered it.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
As a consideration of faith and propriety, the movie never managed to boil my blood or break my heart.
Read Full Review >NPR Bob Mondello
Doubt cast a long moral shadow on Broadway but seems blunter on screen, largely because Shanley's fussy directorial notions ... are less nuanced than the religious and moral arguments he's given his principal characters.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Shanley turns out to have dismayingly few original cinematic notions to back up the basic did-he-or-didn't-he hook in his study of conviction and compassion.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Doubt stirs up a lot of stormy theatrical weather, but the stolid transfer from stage to screen does Shanley's play no favors.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Ella Taylor
Doubt is only marginally, and tendentiously, about moral uncertainty--it's more about the sins of a nosy old biddy who pulls out all the stops when going through the official channels of a male-dominated Catholic Church would get her nowhere.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Mainstream moviemaking, with its commercial directives and slavish attachment to narrative codes isn't particularly hospitable to ambiguity...which may help explain why Mr. Shanley's film feels caught between two mediums and why Ms. Streep appears to be in a Gothic horror thriller while everyone else looks and sounds closer to life or at least dramatic realism.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Unfortunately, the actors don't all behave as though they're performing in the same movie.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Shanley offers no resolution to this Sharks vs. Jets conflict. For that, we have to wait for "Doubt! The Musical."
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
Streep can do anything. She is, of course, wasted on this elephantine fable; if only Doubt had been made in 1964, shot by Roger Corman over a long weekend, and retitled "Spawn of the Devil Witch" or "Blood Wimple," all would have been forgiven
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 62 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Filipe M. gave it an8:
The plot isn't that good; but with the perfomances of Streep, Adams, Hoffman and Davis, not even a lousy story like this turns to be a bad thing to watch.
S Parsons gave it an8:
An engrossing and at times moving film carried by the performance of two of the acting world's finest talents in Hoffman and Streep.
Lizzie beth-1 gave it a5:
Doesn't know how to end a talky yet bereft argument! Only 5/10 for this indie., 20 January 2009 This is still just a quickie based on 2 viewings. Clearly the filmmakers intended Doubt(208) to be at least self-referential for the audience, that is, they never had any intention of settling the priest's guilt with the plot. I went in expecting that. However it was a rude shock to see this perenially talky movie offer only homilies couched in a few sentences of priestly sermon about gossiping being a sin, and valuable truths being easily dissembled into flying feathers that you can never collect again. The topic isn't explored in more detail on film than it was on stage, and suffers not only from insufficient adaptation for the screen, but also from half-heartedly approaching its subject matter itself. This is a good one-note premise inadequately realised, with only one screaming match argument and one honest mother. Unfortunately, the film doesn't go anywhere, and then it ends. There is a little bit of throwaway hindsight in the shape of Meryl Streep's mother superior finally regretting (or being afraid of) her own unsupportable certainty; and the information that what happened in this case too was that the accused priest was just moved on but never dealt with. On the contrary he was promoted in another parish for having suffered her accusations. But of course nothing was decided then, nor is it in this movie; and its unenlightening jip is just too frustrating. The cast is universally very good, but Viola Davis blows Hoffman or Streep away as the Afr-Am tormented mother. She is just WONDERFUL as she cries about her bullied-at-home only son, who is suspected of being gay in a world that refused to understand. The 1960s period recreation is great, too, as many reviewers have remarked. However the unexamined possibilities of the other schoolboys' stories is INFURIATING. I have no patience for movies which deliberately hide certain points of view in order to set up their meagre case. It's playing "God" with the fourth wall, and I riled against this with Batman_Dark Knight as well (the grossly manipulative interrogation scene). I maintain that if the story remains this poorly developed in order to make its case, then it simply hasn't made it. None of us need or want this type of confusing, mired "vision" over such an already confused and brutal reality repeated on film for no good reason. If you're going approach this subject-matter at THIS late stage of the game, then you have to be prepared to reveal more. Scott Rudin and John Patrick Shanley (Writer/Director) - are just letting their fans down. Other reviewers seem to be upset at the critique of Catholic priests, which is just being defensive--the critiques need to happen and result in some wisdoms. But THIS ISN'T THAT WISDOM, despite its Golden Globes and Oscar noms. Deserves very little.(5/10)
Tony B. gave it a7:
An extremely well-acted film for audiences who are up to the challenge, "Doubt" lacks the power it had on the stage, but is nevertheless quite effective.
Jeff O. gave it a6:
Great acting by Streep, the rest of the movie is kinda flat and bland, despite being well done.
Holly C gave it an8:
Tightly written, wonderfully acted, well plotted and beautifully shot. Overall, definitely worth the rental if you haven't seen this already. Streep gives an amazing performance and of course, the story itself leaves you questioning what real virtue is (as it should).
Robin R. gave it a4:
Despite the many high ratings and high reviews I believe they are based on Meryl Streep's past works. However that fact that she can go from intensely angry to desperately sad within 5 seconds does not show off her acting skills. Doubt has no resolution and it does not end in a cliff hanger that makes you wonder and want more. It ends in a cliff hanger that makes you frustrated and also makes you feel like you wasted your time and money.
