Doubt

Saturday March 22, 2008, I saw the play "Doubt" at Triad Stage. It was a masterful performance and honestly one of the best plays we had seen there in quite some time. The original post concerning the theatrical performance was http://thehouseofgordon.blogspot.com/2008/03/doubt.html Last night, the cinematic version was the reason for this blog post today. The trailer:



Intense trailer. Sadly, the film did not hold up the intensity for the full 1 hour and 44 minutes. Don't get me wrong, the film was splendidly made, but frankly there were lulls where you could audibly hear the audience fidget in boredom. I was sad. After such a fantastic play, I looked forward to a fantastic film. It was good. It was thought-provoking. It was entertaining. It just didn't captivate me like the play did. Which in the end was odd as playwright John Patrick Shanley actually directed the film himself.

Man-crush Philip Seymour Hoffman was spectacular. Meryl Streep was unflinching as the principal. The subject of the film is not so much priestly infidelities with boys, but rather it makes you think deeply concerning the confrontation of certainty and doubt. Rigorous grips on the constant versus the unknowing detour towards the new. As Hoffman's Father Flynn says in the opening sermon, sometimes doubt creates a stronger bond that certainty.

In many ways indeed.

Score? A stout Matinee rating. Not quite Full Price, there was just something missing...