John Patrick Shanley's directorial follow-up to his affectionately sprung Joe Versus the Volcano, Doubt pits heavyweights Meryl Streep, as stentorian Sister Aloysius Beauvier, against Philip Seymour Hoffman, as reformer priest Father Brendan Flynn; it seems that in the early-1960s of the film, Father Flynn has taken an interest in altar boy Donald (Joseph Foster) that young Sister James (Amy Adams) finds, shall we say, uncomfortable. She reports her misgivings to Sister Aloysius and Sister Aloysius, accordingly, begins a sort of "Sleuth"-ian cat-and-mouse with our Father Flynn over whatever it is we think or don't think. Set as it is about forty years before the Church 'fessed-up and started paying restitution for the many young men and women molested by their "celibate" shepherds, the gigantic elephant in the room is that Sister Aloysius, for as monstrous as she is and for as clearly as she's established as the force fighting progressive Flynn's campaign for a kinder, gentler Church, is probably absolutely right in general, if not in particular. Doubt is, shall we say, less a mystery about what happened in the vestibule between Flynn and Donald than it is a debate already won about whether or not the Catholic tradition resulted in the ritual abuse of generations of children. Too strong? The struggle of Doubt appears to be whether it's the intolerance represented by the good Sister (of race (Donald's black), or of homosexuality (Donald's gay)) that breeds serpents of the mind or freedom from intolerance as represented by the good Father. There's no good answer, clearly, but not even much in the way of fruitful discussion is offered up in what amounts to a whodunit in a minor key, ending in Beauvier's tearful confession that in a chaotic world, the only justice is chance. The Dark Knight did it the same with more faith.

This takes nothing away from Streep's best turn in years and Hoffman in one of two arguments (the other being his Caden Cotard of Synecdoche, New York) that the Oscar he won for Capote was an investment in future projects. Adams holds her own and Viola Davis, someone I've been interested in since her small role in Steven Soderbergh's Solaris, hits it out of the park as Donald's mother in the film's most troubling, most ambiguous, most obnoxious scene as she argues against her son's rescue in favour of the greater good his continued (possible) abuse might offer against the stark cruelties of the ugly world outside. Here, in Doubt, is the one opportunity for the broad discussion it desires about race, and religion, and progress versus stasis, and while it's unfair to say that it's wasted, safe to say that it's not deeply examined. Compare the conversations Flynn has with Sister Aloysius to the twenty-minute pas de deux in no-not-that Steve McQueen's astonishing Hunger for a better illustration of the difference between great acting and getting punched in the gut.-Walter Chaw (excerpted from a longer review found here)

Video-based extras begin with "From Stage to Screen" (19 mins., HD), in which we meet the inspiration for Amy Adams' Sister James, Shanley's first-grade teacher Sister "James" Margaret McEntee, who wound up serving as a technical consultant on the film. (And whose eyes uncannily suggest those of an older Adams.) This is a pretty by-the-numbers featurette, however, with Shanley giving a bullet-point summary of his yakker and eventually donning an interviewer's cap to ask Streep questions so stock and inane ("What's it like to work with [X]?") that I have to assume it's a form of satire. (To her credit, Streep provides sharp and insightful answers instead of seizing this opportunity to slack off.) EW's Dave Karger sits down with "The Cast of Doubt" (14 mins., HD), i.e., Streep, Adams, Philip Seymour Hoffman (who could've put on a clean shirt), and Viola Davis, and while he's not a half-bad host, nothing memorable is said outside of Streep's potshots at critics; it feels like a dress rehearsal for one of those promotional appearances that entire ensembles make on "Oprah". "Scoring Doubt" (5 mins.) sparks a measure of interest in the scoring process through interviews with a confounded-looking Howard Shore, who says he struggled to write music that was "neutral," favouring neither of the drama's binary points of view. Finally, "Sisters of Charity" (6 mins.) was culled from two hours' worth of recorded testimony from nuns affiliated with the titular society, the real Sister James among them. We learn that Shanley basically applied the Sisters of Charity founder's backstory to Aloysius, but mostly the sisters reminisce about the shockwaves that the formation of the Second Vatican Council sent through their little microcosm in 1962. The trailer for The Proposal plus promos trumpeting Buena Vista's Blu-ray line and the Miramax legacy cue up on startup and are separately archived under a Sneak Peeks sub-menu.-Bill Chambers

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