Tomorrow (Thursday) A Nun’s Life is hosting a blog discussion on the move Doubt from 2-4 p.m. EST. The Sisters of Charity of New York will be joining us to discuss the movie with us.
I wanted to offer a few of my thoughts and questions regarding the movie Doubt but I find that my time is running out as I must get to the airport momentarily to fly from San Francisco to Detroit. So instead, I’m turning to Sister Rose Pacatte, FSP, director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies in Culver City, CA. She is the author of the blog Sr. Rose Goes to the Movies.
Sister Rose wrote a thoughtful review of Doubt the Movie. Here’s a short excerpt but be sure to read the whole thing.
The atmosphere of the film is cold and stark: December in a frozen, urban landscape is bleak. The emotional, rational, spiritual state of doubt can be chilly: a dark night of the soul, the revelation or realization of doubt, that makes us take action and ask questions, that challenges the comfort of our certainty, is a cold, and at times, lonely journey.
As the writings of St. John of the Cross, St. Therese of the Child Jesus, and Mother Teresa attest, doubt happens, and however painful, can be a source of honesty and ultimately, spiritual growth.
The United States Catholic Bishops also has a review of Doubt the Movie.
You can also get a copy of the original play Doubt: A Parable
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
At first i wasn’t sure if I wanted to see it. Now I’m not so sure I don’t want to see it.
Is the Movie doubt based on a true story? The sisters here at the Monastery have been asking that question.
thanks
s florence
I have just seen the movie Doubt and wondered also if it was based on a true story. If it is a true story, was there any light shed on the priest’s guilt or innocence?
My sense is that it is not based on a true story. I’ve not been able to find anything that suggests that. See Sister Regina’s comment above.
I thought it was clumsy and if it was trying to put doubt in viewers’ minds, did not for me. The ending, which I can’t give away, ruined everything. Parts of the movie were riveting, especially the one scene with the boy’s mother. Her aspect on the situation was thought-provoking, and said much about race and the difference between black and white parents ‘ expectations for their children back in 1964. But the director blew it with an ending I just couldn’t buy.
we just saw the movie and my husband thinks that her doubt was about religion as a whole and i have NO clue what the hell she was in doubt of… i mean she was crying, about what?
I think when she said she has doubts she meant … the church system. How he can just go on to another church and be in a new environment with tons of innocent children without being exposed or a slap on the wrists. He got a promotion … I think thats where the director was getting at … that nothing gets done … to save the name of the church. And to this day nothing will get done because everything is so secret or sometimes just looked over and ignored. I have heard of priests who do such things and just get transfered. We had one in my town … yet he got transfered to south america. What is the world coming to.?
I do not want anyone to feel offended by my comment … I was raised catholic all my life … I know I am still young 21 … but I strongly believe in right and wrong … and we as adults should protect children or should I say God’s children in situations like these amongst others. Even if that means having to speak up and stand alone. I would have done the same if I was in the Sisters shoes. I would not expect something like this to just happen. It is a tragedy that some thing like this would ever happen … I don’t believe this was based on a true story. But then again I’m sure something similar has happened which is very sad to think but I myself still have my faith.
i agree that the sister’s doubt had to do with her faith in her religious institution. but also, considering that, whether sending the priest away from her watchful eye contributed to future abuses rather that deterring them which was her intent.
My wife and I just saw the movie tonight. To me the theme of this movie –and indeed our contemporary life in this millenium— is “How do we know what we know?” Today, in this “spiritual low watermark of history,” the ancient wisdom is discounted: the signs of the evidence of good character are forgotten and thus, who to believe, who to trust, who to marry, who to bank with and, indeed, who to vote into public office is impossible to determine. All this and yet—in most cases, the evidence of a person’s past moral failures is available to us and even public record—if we just look. If we are discussing money, a credit report tells instantly and precisely just how trustworthy a person is. But when it comes to bearing false witness, we think a history of lying is no reason question credibility; we should instead follow our gut. I agree with Ellen above: it defies logic that the sister lied her way through the entire film and now suddenly is telling the truth. I suspect that the older nun NOW has major motive to deliver a stunning, heartfelt confession, a real “performance” designed to convince the younger nun that the older nun’s crusade was sincere and thus, forgivable. If the younger nun buys it, she would be unlikely to reveal the lies which so victimized both the father and the young black student.
After seeing the movie DOUBT I was left with a feeling that ALL that was so certain in the pre-Vatican 2 catholic world has been and continues to be subject to doubt in today’s world. In those days the idea of a priest doing such a thing was unthinkable. The role of women, especially the submissiveness of the sisters makes Sr. Aloysius suspicions & actions ahead of her time. Racism & sexual preference are understood today in a complete different way than in the 60’s. In all I was struck by the complexities of all of the characters and issues brought forth by Shanley in this movie. Very thought provoking!
Was it just me or were all the nuns extremely solemn? I mean there was no smiling at all, if I remember. Now, I think there was that elderly nun who had lost her sight smiled while looking at the nativity, but that was it. Is there a reason why they were portrayed as this? Is it to say that the ways before Vatican II were ways lacking of joyfullness? I mean at the beginning of the movie, the tones of the neighborhoods were quite gray.
Currently, our theatre group is in rehearsal of the stage version (very close to the film version, but far more stark), and I play Sr Aloysius. This is both a challenge and struggle, simply because there are ‘doubts’ in my own mind regarding her view of men and her struggle to come to terms with her ‘place’ among them. While I truly believe that her motives are genuine (compassion for children and the ‘victimized’) I can’t help but feel that she also sees herself as ‘victim’…thus she pursues Father Flynn with a vengeance. I have to think she has fought her own demons for most of her life. Interesting that she was once married. What would her life have been if he had not died in “the war against Adolf Hitler?”
Being brought up Catholic and now Christian I was fascinated by this movie because the priesthood was always suspiciously moronic to me as a child. The movie was far more dark and depressing then real life in my Catholic upbringing. We didn’t have paint peeling of the walls, but some nuns definitely needed to be feared. They pulled my ears and had sticks for discipline actions. Some priest just didn’t make sense smoking cigarettes and acting unholy. I separated from the Catholic church because I had doubts. They had established more of a organization of religion rather than a understanding to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The founder of the church and main advocate.
I was definately confused by the ending of this movie. What was she doubting? Her certainty that the priest molested the boy, or the church as a whole? When the Pricipal was asked how she knew the priest had done this, she said, “experience”. That was never brought to light. On a better note, I really enjoyed the acting.The movie would have been great all around if there was a finished ending. I doubt there would be a sequal to this, so the producer really could have made a home run with the end of this film. I was scratching my head a little when the credits when up.
Hello, I liked the last scene very much. Sr. James & Sr. Aloyious seemed personifications of Innocence & Experience comforting each other. It was skillfully edited: the camera draws back and away and up before the scene turns schmaltzy.
It’s left mysterious what drives Sr. A. to pursue Fr. B’s ouster with such fury. I’m inclined to think that someone took advantage of her emotionally or sexually in her pre-convent life, and she’s still angry about it. I think she weeps at the end of the film because her “victory” over him didn’t really ease her heart or comfort her because he’s not the person who originally wronged her. Even if she’d managed to get him totally disgraced and defrocked and imprisoned — it wouldn’t have changed the past for her.
I’ve just watched the film, I agree the ending is a bit unbelievable, I think it would have taken something else for Meryl Streep’s character to have had doubts. I actually thought it was more likely that the Priest was gay and was simply covering up for the boy who was also gay. It would explain why he had to leave his previous parish as I don’t think Catholic Priests are allowed to be gay and he would have had to leave the ministry.
The priest agreed to leave quietly because of what he knew would happen if he fought it out at the expense of the boy. The mother had explained the implied violence the boy’s father would do to the child under such a circumstance. What is so unreal about doubt? Isn’t it why Faith is a cardinal virtue to be defended? Sr. Aloysius was defending the faith of the community in the institution with a lie. When she confessed this to Sr. James, she did the very thing she was protecting the institution against. She planted in the young nun that same doubt in the institution she represented.
Mike – Whew! To learn to express such complex stuff in so few words. Something for me to aspire to… When Sister James said that she could no longer sleep, I felt (as you seemed to) that her doubt was about much more than Father Flynn’s innocence/guilt. Sister Aloysius **created** – rather than revealed – reality when she told Father Flynn that lie and again when she told Sister James about the lie. This is one of the moments when I am repelled by her certainty, by the evil potential of certainty. I thought about her statement early in the movie that “we take a step away from God” when we seek to correct a wrong in God’s service. I think one of the Sisters of Charity said here that they do not share that belief. I do not either. I do, however, believe that when our pursuit of justice is structured, driven and polluted by pride, bitterness, certainty and a lack of certainty, I think we definitely take a step away from God. And I believe that as soon as Sister Aloysius said “So it has happened”, with finality and certainity (and, I think, some perverse pleasure that her expectations about Fr Flynn seemed to have been fulfilled) immediately after Sister James said “Father Flynn has taken an interest [in Donald], she took a step away from God. And you are right, I think: when she granted herself the liberty of lying in service of her desires, she acted as she believed the Church and Father Flynn were so wrongly acting. Jean
I just watched Doubt again with a friend. I am shocked all over again by the corrupting ugliness of Sr Aloysuis’ certainty. I laughed when Sr Aloysuis responded to the light bulb burning out suddenly in her office, seconds after Sr James had asserted herself passionately about her belief that Sr Aloysius simply did not like Fr Flynn and was pursuing him for less than noble reasons. Sr A implies playfully that the burning out of the bulb at that very moment was caused by (or was a chastisement of) Sr James’ emotional and passionate defiance. I loved Sr A’s humor. Later, when Fr Flynn comes to talk with her in her office, the bulb blows again as he finishes a passionate refutation of both her suspicions and her bearing and actions in response to them. When the bulb blows again, she comments on it with no surprise and, I think, a wry and self-satisfied humor, as if the bulb’s “POP!” into darkness had become a confirming sign for her in her certainty that others had acted or spoken wrongly. And then I realized that all through the movie cracks of thunder and lightning and sudden downpours of rain had immediately followed many of Sr Aloysius’ most accusatory words and actions …….. and I noticed her absolute lack of curiosity, let alone humor, about the possibility that she, too, was receiving signs (via nature) that she had spoken or acted wrongly.
I thought, too, about her statements to Sr James – in the classroom when she discovers the cough drops in the desk and the ballpoint pen on the floor – that Sr James’ decision to try to handle matters in the classroom herself “can be an error” and that each person in the institutional church responds to someone else. And then her later statement that, in a previous Church she had had Father so-and-so to turn to when she had a similar concern but that, in this situation, there were no men she trusted so she and Sr James would have to stop Fr Flynn by themselves.
What I want to do for Sr Aloysius, who I experience as a tremendously tortured soul, is find her a spiritual director outside of her community, outside of her parish. When the movie concludes with her statement that she has “such doubts”, I do not think she speaks only of having doubts about what actually occurred with Fr Flynn and Donald Miller or even about her own conduct in that matter. That would seem to be too fantastic and speedy a reversal for one whose certainty was so impermable. Rather, I think that in the last moments of the movie Sister Aloysius articulates the current arc of her spiritual life which is an arc of doubt, an arc of doubt that she was likely already struggling with at the beginning of the movie, even long before Father Flynn gave his homily on doubt and, ultimately, his faith that doubt is part of our life with God, that God does not leave us when we are struggling with doubt. I think she desperately needed to experience certainty in her life at that moment in time and, certainly without conscious thought, created “the perfect storm” so that she could experience the (false) security of that desperately needed certainty. She is, ultimately, a tragic creature crippled by her fear of doubt, a fear that (at least) temporarily crushes her and so many around her and, in the end, no one is served by her corrosive certainty: if Fr Flynn did abuse Donald, Sister A’s willingness to act on her certainty alone as good as assured him new victims. And, if he did not abuse Donald, her willingness to act on her certainty alone as good as assured that Donald would be hit by the boys at school (I did not think the blond boy was a victim of Fr Flynn. Rather, I saw him as a kid with the savvy and skills to “identify prey” – a vulnerable, isolated victim, the same predatory skills to which Sister A was assigning Father Flynn. Example: as soon as Fr Flynn, out of fear that to innocently greet Donald in the hallway would be to convict himself, avoids Donald, the blond boy – a savvy boy – knocks Donald’s books out of his arms).
Finally, I think the significance of the two flowers that Fr Flynn left on Sr Aloysius’ desk – the two flowers from his Liturgy of the Hours – were a message to her: “you have stolen some of my springtime, some of the light in my heart”, that heart-light that he encouraged Sr James to protect in herself when they spoke in the garden. And, yet, he apparently retained the third flower and that, I believe, was symbolic of the faith, of the hope – the sources of lightin our hearts – that God remained with him, that he was not alone even in this time of darkness.
And I’ll say it again: I wanted to find Sister Aloysius a spiritual director so that she could, again, begin to live with discernment.
I’m wondering if anyone would be kind enough to comment on what Sister meant at the end of the movie when she said she has doubts. What did she mean exactly? Doubts about her actions or beliefs?
You see, there’s this part in the movie when the mother of the boy says she’s talking his nature now. And I took that to mean homosexuality. And then there was that part when the younger sister says to Father Flynn, “Love?” And he replies, “Love.” So at the end of the movie, I thought maybe the Sister had doubts that Father Flynn was really trying to help the boy. And then there was that scene about the wind, as if it was coming from some unknown place. So, I suppose I thought the Sister had doubts because she lost her love in a war, and maybe the evil she thought she was trying to fight wasn’t evil at all, but a Father Flynn wanting to be there for a gay male when the world and church would never accept it.
What religious order was Meryl Streep’s character represent?
Hi Carol, I believe its the Sisters of Charity of New York.