One couldn’t accuse John Patrick Shanley of tinkering with his Pulitzer Prize winning play; despite occasionally eccentric framing, Doubt resolutely clings to its theatrical origins. No matter. If this big, starry, showboating film is lacking in spectacle, there’s plenty of compensation to be found in the loaded, taut, whipsmart script.
Set in the Bronx during the early ‘60s, this Oscar nominated pot-boiler sees Meryl Streep’s dragon-lady nun go head-to-head with a suspected paedophile priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Ms. Streep, who establishes her character with a single flick of the finger and blossoms into humanity by a simple gesture involving a fork, shows her chief Academy Award rivals – the Misses Winslet and Hathaway – that they’re not playing the same sport, never mind the same division.
It hardly needs to be said that Ms. Adams and Mr. Seymour Hoffman acquit themselves with aplomb but the real Fancy Dan here is Viola Davis, who cries tears and honest-to-god snot in a scene that’s loaded with dread implications for race and sexuality.
A deliberately ambiguous final scene will have you talking and wondering for days, though eagle-eyed viewers might like to keep an eye on a young character named William London should they require clarification.