Doubt

Every attorney, every judge, every jury deals with "doubt." In criminal cases, defendants must be proved guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt." The standard is much lower in civil cases, but even in civil lawsuits, juries often agonize as to which party is telling the truth. Criminal defense attorneys are bound to defend their client, whether they believe him guilty or not guilty, but themselves often wonder -- both before and after trial -- whether the client lied even to them, his own attorneys.

The movie Doubt shows us how elusive the "truth" can be, and how hard it can be to pick the right path when the truth is in doubt.

Father Flynn is a new and progressive pastor at St. Nicholas parish in the Bronx, not long after the Kennedy assassination, at a time when the Catholic Church was opening up to the modern world under Pope John XXIII. St. Nicholas's parochial school is run by Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep, in an amazingly nuanced and beautifully acted performance). Sister Aloysius isn't much interested in change. Kids are kids, not people. Kids need to be taught -- both schoolwork and behavior -- the same way a horse is broken to the saddle, a method that doesn't allow for a lot of hugs, kind words, and empathy. Father Flynn -- who, while not neglecting discipline, seems to actually like the students -- is just one more irritant in Sister Aloysius's life.

Sister Aloysius is a disciplinarian of the old school who doesn't suffer fools lightly, and, in her opinon, that includes Father Flynn and, to a lesser degree, most of the nuns who teach in her school. She's apparently disliked Father Flynn from the day she met him. One of the younger nuns bravely accuses her of wanting him out of the parish.

This is the 1960's, and St. Nicholas has enrolled its first "Negro" student ever, an eighth grade boy named Donald Miller. The boy is shy and scared and isolated. We learn that his mother transferred him to a parochial school because he'd been taunted as homosexual at his public school, and that his father hates him and beats him regularly. Donald isn't really bullied at St. Nicholas, but he makes no friends with the other students, who come from a rather rough, working-class neighborhood. Father Flynn sees the problem, appoints him an altar boy, and makes an effort to befriend and encourage him.

On slight evidence, Sister Aloysius concludes that an improper relationship has developed between the priest and the boy. She admits to a younger nun, one of her teachers, that she has no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing -- just a gut feeling that she's developed over a lifetime of experience. The evidence is so sketchy that a judge would never permit the case to go to a jury. Her accusations would seem totally unconvincing to us, the audience, as well -- except that we are sensitized by the knowledge that sexual abuse by priests actually did occur during that period, and was often overlooked by the Church.

Sister Aloysius has no way to substantiate her concerns. Father Flynn denies her accusations. The boy hero-worships the priest. His mother is uncooperative, and is just relieved that Father Flynn is helping her son. Father Flynn has good rapport with the bishop.

As the movie progresses, our sympathies and judgment lean first one way, and then the other -- one moment we feel that Sister Aloysius is a paranoid nut case, the next moment that she may have correctly intuited something that she has the duty to expose.

By the end, we simply don't know.

By force of her assertive personality, Sister Aloysius succeeds in intimidating Father Flynn into resigning and leaving the parish. The boy is devastated -- "heartbroken," according to his teacher -- by the loss of the one person who had shown him any attention and had given him encouragement. After the boy's traumatic experiences in public school, the mother is desperate that her son finish eighth grade successfully at St. Nicholas, giving him the opportunity to attend a decent high school and eventually escape the poverty of his family. Now there is reason to fear that he will not do well at all.

The movie ends with Sister Aloysius -- resolute and supremely self-confident up until that moment -- confessing in tears to one of the other nuns: "I have such doubts, I have such doubts!"

Doubt gives us no tidy answers, but it asks all the right questions. What is our duty when we feel that something terrible is happening, but we have no way of learning the truth and we face the risk of destroying lives if our guess is wrong? In making such a decision, can any person recognize the subconcious influences in his or her own life -- such as, in this case, fear or dislike of change, threats to one's own authority -- that may affect one's judgment? Sister Aloysius -- who Meryl Streep portrays as a fascinating tyrant, but a tyrant who is human and not without likeable human qualities -- did what she at least consciously believed necessary, and then crumpled at the recognition that she may have been gravely mistaken or worse, and that she may have caused great harm.

What would we have done in her place? Or failed to do? Could we have been wiser? Could anyone?