Be wary not to misjudge Sister Aloysius. She will come after you with the jaws of a snapping turtle, for starters. Many regard her, though, as uncompassionate and backward-thinking, when in fact her quest to upset the patriarchal hierarchy of the Catholic Church was remarkable for 1964. Though she is a hornet of strong wills, she is no demon: she will gladly be damned to Hell as the price for protecting the innocent. She is obstinate but selfless.
It's easy to misread the film at first. John Patrick Shanley, the writer and director who won a Pulitzer for its stage incarnation, clouds his story in archetypes. Blustery winds thrash the nuns with hurricanes of autumn leaves when trouble is afoot. And the two nuns act as if they were thrown out of Oz: good witch Sister James (Amy Adams) finds joy in everyone, while wicked witch Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) will not let her suspicions rest.
This is why Philip Seymour Hoffman is so admirable in his role as Father Flynn. The priest lightens his sermons with humor, jokes with the boys in the school, and wishes for a secular song in the Christmas pageant. Hoffman fades into the easygoing nature of Flynn so effortlessly that he doesn't even look like he's acting. It's no leap to convince ourselves, because Hoffman is such a genuine actor, that Flynn is innocent. Aloysius decides early on, on minor bits of evidence, that Flynn has molested an altar boy.
At first I worried about Streep and Adams, so yin and yang that they verged on caricature. Adams proves she has some vigor later on, when she confesses her love for "Frosty the Snowman." And Shanley, I think intentionally, wants us to misjudge Streep initially, as if to see when the bait-and-switch happens, when our allegiances switch from Flynn to Aloysius (if they do).
No matter if Streep's accent is thicker than her habit; she summons an indomitable spirit and relentlessness that, as the film progresses, becomes more and more courageous. She's not just fighting against this priest, or even for the sake of young boys corrupted by the church: she herself feels hindered by the misogyny instilled in the rules and foundations. What she comes to realize, maybe too late, is that her own internal fortress of strict rules must come down before she and the church may both grow.
It's not a film about whether or not Flynn did or did not molest the boy. Shanley's objective, to emphasize how confining moral certainty can be, is clear. The tempestuous weather, tilted camera angles, and Streep's constantly wavering eyes are cartoonish, but Stanley has a gift for natural dialogue and debate, with occasional moments of shock. Hoffman and Streep both have their finest moments when he indirectly confesses a mortal sin (but is it that?) and she stifles back tears when thinking of sins in her past. Viola Davis stunned me as the boy's mother; her presence isn't about outacting anybody but about resilience and enduring what happens rather than probing and waging more destruction. Though her inaction is disturbing, it raises important questions: Is such a sin unforgivable? Will acting outside the rules harm more than help the child? Shanley's film does not invite easy answers and, despite distracting elements, is simple in its complexity: only through Doubt can we change.
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