Doubt (the film)

Happy New Year, my friends - and may it be a blessed one. Oddly enough, though I have visions of Incarnation, deification, and cosmic redemption dancing through my head (having already found that sugarplums are to my disadvantage...), today I've had the new film "Doubt" much on my mind. I had the good fortune to find a cinema which offered bargain rates for pre-midday showings, and seeing this excellent film was my birthday present to myself.

Be forewarned that I have no credentials as a film critic, but anyone interested will find a wealth of words on the Internet from those who do, and I'm not alone in thinking it superb. The four principal characters gave stunning performances, and (though some critics would disagree) I found the camera treatments to be highly effective. Though Meryl Streep, as the formidable Sister Aloysius, dominates the action to some extent (as well she should, given the situations portrayed), I found it to be a decent example of ensemble acting, which is very much my film preference. (I loathe Hollywood clichés of 'scene stealing' and such rot.)

I don't want to include spoilers, because I'd highly encourage others to see this film and don't want to ruin the unfolding of the plot. Yet there is enough in the reviews I mentioned for me to disclose nothing in saying that the ambiguity of the dialogue and situations are most thought provoking. I suppose the nature of the person would influence the perception to a great extent, and I am not loath to share my own impressions (with which others may strongly disagree - and those of us who enjoy films where questions remain unresolved will not be disappointed, for every element of the action contains 'doubt.')

Though there are reasons of discretion which make me not be specific here or elsewhere on the Internet, I worked for the Roman Catholic church for 29 years, and in a managerial position where I had occasion to see the full scope of ... what I'll term the human condition. Most of the clergy and religious with whom I dealt were very decent people, some extraordinary, yet when I did encounter situations which were less than edifying, or occasionally potentially scandalous, they seldom had to do with anything remotely connected to sex, let alone sex crimes (of which Sr Aloysius assumes Father Flynn is guilty, with no proof whatever.) Of the seven capital sins, the one most likely to infect professional churchmen is some form of avarice - often more for power than for material wealth. Sister Aloysius may be assumed a heroine by some viewing the film, because the media focus on paedophilia is often exaggerated or distorted to a point where one might assume (and totally without substance, in my experience) that most clergy either are guilty of such crimes or sheltered those who did so. I am in no way minimising the heinous situations in which this was the case! I am merely reminding my readers that not only were the number of clergy so involved a small minority, but that, in the course of my lengthy career but also in my life experience overall, I have seen far more people become spiritual quadriplegics through rash judgement, detraction, and calumny (which can masquerade as virtues for those, such as Sr Aloysius, who insist on their own 'certainty' despite a lack of any evidence) than from criminal offences. Sadly, I have seen many people's reputations destroyed, unjustly, because of such judgement and talk - normally not because of criminal allegations, but from detraction or calumny in other forms.

Many thoughts struck me as I viewed the film (and not only because I well remember a nun here and there rather like Aloysius, or that it constantly occurred to me that the dreadful school choirs depicted in the film were sadly like the reality I recall from my own school days... back in the far off time of idealism when I genuinely believed there was hope for the RC music and liturgy.) I noticed, for example, how Aloysius was ready to assume Fr Flynn had a personal indiscretion to hide when he spoke of doubt in a sermon (which was of better quality than one might hear from a genuine pulpit.) She suggests to her fellow Sisters that this meant they must be wary of what is happening in the school - and, when she bit off the head of an elderly Sister who was puzzled and asked if Aloysius meant academic standards, let us say that there was shades of a few equally charming (ahem!) Sisters who came to mind. Of course, I know my own spirituality (part patristic, part medieval English mystic, part walking at right angles to the world... not to mention a weird stew of Franciscan, Dominican, and Benedictine, with a touch of the Jesuit graduate education flavouring the gravy) is not exactly typical of everyone in the pew, nor of Sisters of Charity whose focus is more on nursing and education than on contemplation. Still, whether the likes of Father Flynn would have their minds on exactly what I did or not, it immediately occurred to me that doubt is a staple of spirituality - in fact, it can be a sign of the mystic vocation in some cases (there is no certainty in faith - and true faith always begins with a recognition of mystery and eventual, growing awareness that our grasp of the divine is but a glimpse of what is far beyond us.)

Sister James, the young nun who is teaching children of 13 or so, struck a chord with me as well. (She is sweet, innocent, and a great lover of children... not traits of which I'd ever be accused. Yet she wants to show warmth, openness and love to those whom she serves, and wishes to assist her pupils in enjoying history, the subject she teaches. As I've seen many times 'in real life,' this wonderful teacher becomes a minor tyrant when Aloysius believes that James is not 'controlling the class.' (As one who had the experience of teaching adolescents, I thought her class was about as good as that for which a teacher could hope!) I could identify, as well, with how James has empathy for Fr Flynn - and the viewer is left to guess whether his warmth, affection, friendliness and so forth are the pretences of a paedophile or the outgrowth of a genuinely loving heart (my impression being the latter.)

It saddened me to remember that the very positive role which priests (and religious, and teachers, and others in service to the young and not so young) is greatly curtailed today. Whatever is implied (and my own impression was more that Sr Aloysius had a prurient side to her thinking than that she was the only one clever enough to read signals), there is absolutely nothing shown (or known) to indicate sexual activity between Fr Flynn and the boy whom Sr Aloysius believes he is molesting. Like Fr Flynn, I have held and comforted those who are distressed (in my case, even when the homeless gave me such souvenirs as ringworm). Fr Flynn's keeping quiet that an altar boy sampled some of the wine (...I'd like to know which has not, though the drunkenness to which most pretend is pretence, since the wine isn't very potent and there isn't much to go around..) - his defending the first black child in the school from bullying (though bullying is a teenage art form, and one cannot assume sheer racism) - his powerful (and very true!) sermon about the dangers of gossip - all were perfectly understandable and could meet a simple explanation.

When Sister Aloysius (in what she later admits to Sr James was an outright lie) mentions that she told Fr Flynn that a nun at his previous parish had revealed details about him, she is smug in assuming that he would not have been troubled at this had he had nothing to hide. Yet there is no reason to assume that gossip (or what some people who eat the candles off the altar consider to be scandalous) means a history of criminal behaviour. When Fr Flynn, in one of the most powerful moments in the action, asks Aloysius if she has ever been guilty of grave sin, it was not a confession of any criminal action on his part. We all have been guilty of sin - and, if Fr Flynn indeed is innocent, the sin of destroying another's reputation certainly meets all the criteria for being extremely grave.

The film leaves no answers - which makes the impact the greater. I am inclined to think that it will strike many people on many levels - and that is what makes for good theatre or literature... as much as for any humility in approaching the topic of spirituality.