John Patrick Shanley's 'Doubt'

Joe Versus the Volcano was the movie that made me a John Patrick Shanley fan.

About twenty minutes into that particular movie, I remember thinking to myself, "This is totally original. This is not a movie I've ever seen before."

If you love movies, you know that that is not a statement you can make very often. Movies are great, but truly, there is nothing new under the sun in Hollywood.

Unless, that is, you happen to be watching a John Patrick Shanley flick.

Doubt, Shanley's most recent film, is the screen version of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name. With it we are again are treated to something entirely new under the sun. Whatever your personal beliefs or convictions, rest assured that watching Doubt will call them into question. If you like your endings neat and clean, move along. This one's not for you.

The story follows Sister Aloysius Beauvier, the crusty old principal of a 1960s-era Catholic grade school; Father Flynn, the new parish priest; Sister James, a new teacher with an innocent outlook; and Donald Miller, a new student and the only black child in the school.

As the film opens we discover that Sister Aloysius (played by Meryl Streep) suspects that Father Flynn has a secret. Aware of the new priest's frequent transfers from parish to parish, and taking note of subtle cues in the way the boys at the school react to him, Sister Aloysius instructs her nuns to be on the lookout for anything strange or disturbing in the priest's behavior.

It doesn't take long for young Sister James to notice odd, inappropriate details about Father Flynn's relationship with Donald Miller, the new black student; a boy who nonetheless adores the liberal priest. Alcohol is detected on Donald's breath after he is called out of class to meet with Flynn. Flynn gives him special gifts and attention. Sister James sees Flynn tuck Donald's soiled undershirt into his locker.

Upon hearing these details from Sister James, Sister Aloysius takes it upon herself to rid her school of Father Flynn even though she has no concrete proof of the misbehavior she suspects. She eventually confronts Flynn in private, telling him a (false) story about contacting a nun at the parish he just left regarding his behavior. Father Flynn reacts explosively to this news, which could either be an admission of guilt or righteous indignation, depending on how sympathetic you are to his character.

In fact. much of the film turns on whether the viewer is more sympathetic to the authoritarian nun who seems to have no doubt about anything, or to the Father Flynn character, who is clearly on the cutting edge of Vatican II and questions just about everything, yet also seems like he actually could be pedophile; a nice, loving, thinking, liberal pedophile-- but a pedophile nonetheless.

Other complications are introduced:

Donald Miller, we learn, is beaten at home by his father for his effeminate behavior and was repeatedly taunted and beaten at public school for the same reasons, which is why his mother pulled him out and sent him to an all-white Catholic school. We are led to believe the young boy is probably gay, and this, combined with his race and the pre-Civil Rights setting, stands to render his intellectual abilities beside the point unless someone gives him a leg up by protecting him.

Is it possible that, like the Socratic teachers of ancient Greece, the affections shown to Donald by Flynn are the best thing that has ever happened to him? In a searingly painful scene in which Sister Aloysius discusses the 'problem' with Donald's mother we are left wondering.

Is the suspected relationship between Donald and Father Flynn unhealthy or is it in this specific instance symbiotic and positive? Is truth relative or absolute? Since we never know for sure if the relationship between Donald and Father Flynn is sexual or not, coming to a conclusion about its value is nearly impossible, but we are at the very least left questioning our assumptions.

Is pedophilia always evil? I'd be inclined to say yes, but in the context of the film even I was left doubting my own strong feelings about it. I've often wondered, for instance, how damaging sexual abuse would be to children if they were free to talk about it without knowing for sure that the other adults in their lives would melt down completely as a consequence.

In some ways, it has always seemed to me that, while it is certainly no fun to have some geezer fondle you at a young age, it is more the secrecy involved and the extreme emotionalism on the part of other adults surrounding a revelation that makes sexual abuse so damaging to children. It's the secrecy and the guilt and shame that comes with abuse that seems to do the harm, not so much the sex itself, and in some ways society makes that dynamic worse when it reacts hysterically to the practice, which it nearly always does.

I was raised in the Catholic faith. I've had direct experience with scary, authoritarian nuns, and I also witnessed the conviction of one of the most beloved, liberal priests in town for pedophilia. I spent years in a Catholic youth group and saw first hand how screwed up just about all the adults were, never mind the kids.

Bill on the other hand had only a brief encounter with Lutheranism as a kid and has been an avowed atheist for most of his adult life. I have enough Catholic baggage to fill a bus or two, and still shiver at the sight of a woman in a habit. So I'd have expected that I would have sided with the priest and he would have sided with the nun, but actually, the reverse was true.

I immediately warmed to the character of Sister Aloysius, who in my perception came across not as a martinet and an intolerant grudge but rather as a woman who had been on earth much too long and knew human beings much too well to suffer fools gladly.

It would have been all too easy to portray a nun like Aloysius as a caricature instead of a human being. Streep interpreted Aloysius as a nuanced, complex woman whose sense of responsibility to her students and her faith was not constrained by any need for the approval of others. She reminded me of my paternal grandmother. Her job, as she saw it, was the care and education of her young charges. She wasn't there to be their friend.

Bill, on the other hand, saw in Aloysius only the authoritarian know-it-all, and in Father Flynn a man who, if he were to ever want to be a part of any church, might be the sort of man he would admire: warm, open-minded, reasonable, and liberal in his interpretations. Where he saw a thinking fellow willing to look at relativism and the active practice of tolerance, I saw yet another friendly beloved priest with a pile of secrets backed by a patriarchal political structure that insured he would suffer no negative consequences ever.

The genius of the screenplay is that by the end of it, we both had more new questions about our assumptions than we had answers, and we both questioned our own sympathies more than anything else.

Doubt never gives you an answer to the nagging question, "Did he do it?" But it does leave you with plenty of reservations and discomfort.

And that's the point of Doubt: That faith isn't about certainty or religion or belief, it's about what you do next in the face of uncertainty and doubt.

At one point Sister Aloysius says to Sister James, "Maybe we aren't meant to get to comfortable in this life."

I personally believe that.

I've never seen it so brilliantly illustrated.