| | | |Based on the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Play.
Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.35:1, French, Subtitled, Spanish, Dubbed & Subtitled, English, Dubbed
From Miramax Films comes one of the most honored and acclaimed motion pictures of the year, Doubt. Based on the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play, Doubt is a mesmerizing, suspense-filled drama with four riveting performances from Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis that will have you pinned to the edge of your seat. Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Streep), the rigid and fear-inspiring principal of the Saint Nicholas Church School, suffers an extreme dislike for the progressive and popular parish priest Father Brendan Flynn (Hoffman). Looking for wrongdoing in every corner, Sister Aloysius believes she's uncovered the ultimate sin when she hears Father Flynn has taken a special interest in a troubled boy. But without proof, the only thing certain is doubt. Nominated for 5 Academy Awards and 6 Critics' Choice awards, there is no Doubt it is "One of the best pictures of the year," (USA Today, Rolling Stone, New York Post).
"Streep and Hoffman are pitch-perfect, and Amy Adams is also superb as a young nun caught up in the conflict." Albert Williams, Chicago Reader
"...Doubt compels viewers to examine their own assumptions as they become caught up in this fascinating tale." Claudia Puig, USA Today
"Exhausting yet invigorating, it's a drama one witnesses more than just views." Matthew Sorrento, Film Threat
"Satisfies the heart and engages the mind." Perry Seibert, TV Guide
"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." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Editor's Note
A tough-as-nails Catholic school principal, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) tries to trick a confession out of a progressive priest (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) whom she suspects of being a pedophile in this terse drama, directed by John Patrick Shanley, based on his hit stage play, set in the mid 1960s in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. There's a feeling of dread and claustrophobia in the parochial school air: the kids can't sit still and they quake in terror of being called downstairs to face Sister Aloysius's wrath. Amy Adams is the sweet-natured sister in charge of eighth grade, who first suspects Father Flynn (Hoffman) may have seduced a withdrawn African-American boy in her class. Sister Aloysius becomes convinced of the priest's guilt, but it's hard to be certain if her judgment is obscured by the change he represents or is just the result of her hardened years of experience. Director of photography Roger Deakins brings a lived-in bleakness to the cold wintry Bronx settings: paint peeling off the rectory walls, bare trees reflected in frosty windows, wrinkled white linen, and old, wizened faces in the gloom of the actual location photography. This all contrasts impressively with the hothouse nature of the performances; when Hoffman and Streep finally go toe-to-toe, you can feel the gods of acting rise to attention. The real scene stealer here however is Viola Davis, shattering as the possibly victimized boy's hard-working mother. She even leaves Streep at a standstill, and that's saying something.
| Features | Audio: English, French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Dubbed: French | | Feature Audio Commentary With Writer/Director John Patrick Shanley | | Featurettes: Doubt - From Stage To Screen, Scoring Doubt, The Cast Of Doubt, & The Sisters Of Charity | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: Spanish |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | Doubt - DVD Review By: Ed Perkis - Cinema Blend DVD Reviews Published on: 4/24/2009 3:46 PM | | In bringing his play to the big screen, Shanley did quite a few things wrong but did one thing right. He got an excellent cast (all four key actors received Academy Award nominations) and let them turn his documentation of the conflict between a Priest and a Nun at a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964 into something real and relatable. Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Father Flynn and Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius both take their characters beyond the obvious and clichd and that makes their conflict all the more difficult. ...read the full review |
| Technical Info
|
Release Information
| | Studio: Buena Vista |
| Release Date: 12/26/2009 |
| Running Time: 104 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2008 | | Catalog ID: 05653300 | | UPC: 00786936756173 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Oscar (2009) | | | Amy Adams, Nominee, t Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role | |
Golden Globe (2009) | | | Amy Adams, Nominee, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture | | | John Patrick Shanley, Nominee, Best Screenplay - Motion Picture | |
Oscar (2009) | | | John Patrick Shanley, Nominee, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published | | | Meryl Streep, Nominee, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role | |
Screen Actors Guild (2009) |  | Meryl Streep, Winner, Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role | |
Golden Globe (2009) | | | Meryl Streep, Nominee, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama | |
Screen Actors Guild (2009) | | | Meryl Streep, et. al., Nominee, Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture | |
Oscar (2009) | | | Philip Seymour Hoffman, Nominee, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role | |
Golden Globe (2009) | | | Philip Seymour Hoffman, Nominee, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture | |
Oscar (2009) | | | Viola Davis, Nominee, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role |
|
| | Professional Reviews | Variety
"The tension between unbending principle and the call for compassion and human understanding could scarcely be more pointedly evoked than it is here, and Davis' performance is devastatingly great..." 11/07/2008Rolling Stone
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "Hoffman nails every nuance in a complex role. And Streep is unmissable and unforgettable....There's no doubt about this mind-bender. It'll pin you to your seat." 12/11/2008 p.102 Chicago Sun-Times
"[Davis] has one significant scene, but it is long, crucial and heartbreaking. Davis goes face to face with Streep with astonishing conviction..." 12/05/2008 USA Today
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "Streep delivers a bravura performance....Philip Seymour Hoffman is ever bit her equal in his spectacular portrayal....DOUBT compels viewers to examine their own assumptions as they become caught up in this fascinating tale." 12/12/2008 New York Times
"Ms. Streep blows in like a storm, shaking up the story's reverential solemnity with gusts of energy and comedy." 12/12/2008 Los Angeles Times
"On the stage as well as on the screen, DOUBT is a highly polished piece of business, with every speech and every action calculated for maximum effect..." 12/12/2008 Rolling Stone
Ranked #8 in Rolling Stone's 'Movies Of The Year' -- "[A] stinging film..." 01/08/2008 p.116 Box Office
4 stars out of 5 -- "[F]uelled equally by anger and compassion, writer-director John Patrick Shanley's DOUBT is a terrific and troubling drama of ideas bristling with nuance and grief." 12/22/2008 Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "Streep and Hoffman are superbly matched, while Adams brings a touching sincerity to her wide-eyed innocent. As fine as they are, however, it's Viola Davis who shines brightest..." 02/01/2009 Empire
3 stars out of 5 -- "[Streep] slips something human between the gusts of piercing anger: wry grace notes written into her pursed lips and arching brow." 03/01/2009 ReelViews 10 of 10
It's one of life's bitter ironies that one of the first things lost to moral certainty is the capacity for compassion. Righteousness is a cold, hard position, and an unshakeable one. It allows no room for one of the most basic tenants of human existence: doubt. Faith exists not in counterpoint to certainty but to doubt. And those in religious institutions who wish to commune with their fellows must never lose sight of the fact that doubt defines and binds us...Doubt, John Patrick Shanley's screen adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play, is the story of doubt and certainty in direct conflict. And it's a tale that enters a moral quagmire from which it never fully emerges. Those seeking clear answers to difficult questions will not find them here. Movies often provide resolution and catharsis. These are rarely qualities uncovered in real life situations, and that is mirrored here. One is likely to leave Doubt pondering all that has transpired but perhaps no closer to "truth" than any of the characters are. Not since David Mamet's Oleanna has a play-to-film translation offered such difficult to digest intellectual substance...As hot-button an issue as is pedophilia in the priesthood, Doubt deals in subtleties. It asks questions about faith. It acknowledges the importance of vigilance yet, at the same time, cautions against embracing certainty because such an action curtails the search for truth. There's a lot here to digest, but it's not meaningless philosophizing. These characters and the pain of their circumstances become visceral. They are people, not abstractions. They merit understanding, pity, and anger. Doubt is an intellectually and emotionally exhausting and engrossing experience. It is drama of the highest caliber, shaped by words and characters and directed with a simplicity that stands in stark contrast to the complexity of the people and issues on screen. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
A Catholic grade school could seem like a hermetically sealed world in 1964. That's the case with St. Nicholas in the Bronx, ruled by the pathologically severe principal Sister Aloysius, who keeps the students and nuns under her thumb and is engaged in an undeclared war with the new parish priest...There is one African-American student at St. Nicholas, Donald Miller (Joseph Foster II), and Father Flynn encourages him in sports and appoints him as an altar boy. This is all proper. Then Sister James notes that the priest summons the boy to the rectory alone. She decides this is improper behavior, and informs Aloysius, whose eyes narrow like a beast of prey. Father Flynn's fate is sealed...But "Doubt" is not intended as a docudrama about possible sexual abuse. Directed by John Patrick Shanley from his Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play, it is about the title word, doubt, in a world of certainty. For Aloysius, Flynn is certainly guilty. That the priest seems innocent, that Sister James comes to believe she was mistaken in her suspicions, means nothing. Flynn knows a breath of scandal would destroy his career. And that is the three-way standoff we watch unfolding with precision and tension...Doubt. It is the subject of the sermon Father Flynn opens the film with. Doubt was coming into the church and the United States in 1964. Would you still go to hell if you ate meat on Friday? After the assassination of Kennedy and the beginnings of Vietnam, doubt had undermined American certainty in general. What could you be sure of? What were the circumstances? The motives? The conflict between Aloysius and Flynn is the conflict between old and new, between status and change, between infallibility and uncertainty. And Shanley leaves us doubting..."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. - Roger Ebert
|
| |
|
|
|
