My Turn
Subscribe
Media Matters
by Steve Carpenter
I’m grateful Shaping Families has tackled this difficult but important topic — sexual abuse. I’m here to talk about the highly acclaimed 2008 film adaptation of John Parker Stanley’s Pulitzer Prize winning play, Doubt, which also deals with this subject.
Set in 1964 in St. Nicholas Catholic Church’s working class neighborhood of the Bronx, Doubt pits a popular new priest, Father Flynn, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, against a stern Catholic School Principal, Sister Beauvier, played by Meryl Streep. Amy Adams portrays a young, hopeful and somewhat naive new teacher, Sister James, who unwittingly gets caught between these two goliaths when she tells Sister Beauvier of concerns regarding her student Donald Miller, the school’s first African American pupil. Donald was pulled out of class by Father Flynn and returned with alcohol on his breath. Based on this circumstantial evidence, Sister Beauvier immediately assumes the priest is guilty of pedophilia, and vows to unmask and destroy him. Thus begins a cat and mouse game between the likeable priest and the unyielding headmistress. Is Sister Beauvier astute in challenging the priest and protecting her young charges or has her personal dislike for Father Flynn clouded her judgment? This question forcibly drives the plot forward.
Meanwhile, Father Flynn is extremely popular with the congregation. He coaches the boy’s basketball team and befriends Donald, who looks up to him and confides he too wants to become a priest.
The film explores the tension between certainty and doubt. However, the type of doubt under consideration is not religious doubt, “Does God exist?” but legal doubt, “Is he guilty?” and personal doubt, “Am I doing the right thing?”
One of the film’s ironies is Sister Beauvier doggedly pursues Father Flynn on the suspicion of an improper relationship with a student while completely ignoring the fact that Donald’s father regularly beats him. She is fixated on alleged sexual abuse by the Priest and ignores known physical abuse by the boy’s father. As David Brubaker noted in today’s program, any form of abuse is serious, it seldom stops on its own, and it needs to be confronted.
Back to the film! It contains no special effects, no computer generated graphics and no stunts. Rather, the acting, story line and dialogue carry Doubt to lofty cinematic heights. It provokes thought but doesn’t provide answers and may be dissatisfying to those who like tidy endings. It is rated PG-13 for intense dialogue and mature themes. Blessings in your work, worship, and witness.
blog comments powered by Disqus
