Undoubtably Not Very Good

Cuddle the ambiguity. Bathe in it. Hell, you might as well have sex with it while you're there, because that's what John Patrick Shanley is doing. He's so in love with ambiguity he's built it it's own house so he can visit it on weekends. There's really nothing better than not knowing a fucking thing about your characters, is there? I mean, I, for one, like nothing better than leaving a cinema knowing nothing more than when I entered it. Such unilluminating storytelling is what everyone dreams of participating in. Meryl Streep knows this. Philip Seymour Hoffman too. They know you don't need to fully understand these characters, or have them make any coherent sense. That's why they shout; it dilutes your brain function, wills you into submission.

Oh, I'm sorry. I think me and sarcasm got a bit too involved there. But I've kicked him out in his underpants now, so don't worry. It's perfectly obvious that Doubt relies on ambiguity like a crutch, but the problem is that it does it in all the wrong places. Check Shanley's trash, because I'm sure that somewhere in there he's disposed of a checklist of all the Big Points that he runs around checking off within the film. Gender politics, check. Racial tension, check. Sexuality, check. Modernity versus tradition, check. Some of these points are so broadly telegraphed that it's almost absurd, and worse, removes the actors even further from any kind of full characterization. Streep and Hoffman eventually give in entirely to this idea, maybe because in the second half the film basically becomes a yelling duet between the two of them. Not hard, since the film famously only really has four characters of any substance whatsoever, and Amy Adams' precocious young nun has already vanished and Viola Davis' mother already swooped in for her one remarkable powerhouse scene.

You can't blame the two headliners too much, though. I hate to point the finger of blame, but this is Shanley's film and Shanley is the problem. For all I know, his original Broadway play is an utter masterpiece, but Shanley is all too conscious that this is a film and he is all too set on opening it out. Intense focus on wild, dangerous weather is alarmingly foregrounded and feels utterly pointless, while his gathering use of canted angles makes the dialectics feel even more self-consciously unbalanced than they already do. One repeated trope of shouting- both from Hoffman and, in her most interesting scene, Adams- blowing the bulb in Streep's office feels particularly blunt in its intended irony. Since Shanley adapted his own stageplay, too, it's easy to blame him for the script's shortcomings.

But even Shanley knows that this is an actor's film, and therein lies both success and failure. Problems with Streep and Hoffman do not, sadly, lie solely in their denigration into a shouting volley- the accent she adopts easily tends towards hamminess, and too often that's the route Streep takes. Hoffman flips so sharply between the kind, caring and hip priest and the verbose, bellowing self-righteous priest that he's basically a priest with a split personality. But Philip, where's the ambiguity?!

But at least we have some superior people to back them up. Amy Adams is given a thankless role; or rather a thankless task, because where at first Doubt might even seen to be about her precocious, confused young nun, it throws her overboard with such sudden flippancy that it's sad to see such strong work go to waste. Adams' struggling against the script's continual insistence that Sister James is a wholly innocent fool mangled into suspicion by Streep's Sister Aloysius doesn't always come off, but it's fascinating to watch her embuing some depth to the character, shading ordinary moments with a more subtle approach that brings to mind, if in a much lighter way, Sally Hawkins' lauded Poppy from Happy-Go-Lucky.

And then there's Viola Davis. I could give you some romanticized backstory about how I already loved this formidable character actress, but I'll just throw out the title Solaris and be done with it. I think the nub of why the part of Mrs. Miller works as well as it does- and that's very well indeed- is because there's no hankering after ambiguity here. Indeed, it's the opposite- what we get from Mrs. Miller is a truth so surprising and naked that it takes both Sister Aloysius and the audience aback. Which is not to say that there is no ambiguity, no subtlety in Davis' performance itself. Mrs. Miller is warring with herself, wondering at first what the Sister wants and then what she should say in response. And further- this performance succeeds where the others don't, where Shanley doesn't, in anchoring the film in a recognisable universe, in a world we can connect with and understand. In Davis' remarkable ten minutes there are embued histories- of racial struggle, of gender struggle, of family struggle- and they are all mingling together as we watch her. It's hard not to tend to hyperbole when remembering this scene, because it sticks out so boldly, and although this is its design it is no less effective.

But sadly, once Mrs. Miller vacates the film, Shanley's muddy ambiguous wallpaper starts to curl up and he basically abandons Streep and Hoffman to try and yell it back onto the wall. Alright, so enough with my bizarre metaphors and whatnot, but I was actually alarmed by how, in pursuit of such delicate ambiguity Doubt could end up being so crashingly unsubtle. Maybe if Sister Aloysius existed as a coherent character beyond one scene I'd care. Maybe if you made any attempt to anchor this school in a world that doesn't function like a horror movie, I'd see these dilemmas as real. But maybe you're relying on Viola Davis a little too much, eh? She can't hold both ends of your wallpaper. C-

May you be in Heaven half an hour...

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a Greek tragedy- at least that's how it seems. Kelly Masterson's surprisingly complex (you might say convoluted, but the winding back and forth seems to simultaneously become less important and more coherent as the film progresses) screenplay presents little sympathy for her characters, sidelining those who might possibly be a hook for the average audience, or otherwise paring down aspects of character that might tend towards pleasant. These are dirty, nasty people, but Masterson, along with director Sidney Lumet, maneuvers them somehow into some kind of verbose epicity.

This is not a bad thing. The film, necessarily, focuses at first on the film's central event- a robbery- which it frames its entire conceit around. Titles inform us both where we are in relation to the crime, and who, ostensibly, we are "seeing" this part of the film from- although never, really, does the film actually seem to enter these people's heads. You can't blame it for not wanting to. Masterson and Lumet keep us on the outside looking in (much like Marisa Tomei's Gina often does), watching the greed and selfishness of the leading duo of brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) unfurl into pain, danger and death. There were a few walkouts of the screening I attended, and I think that makes clear that the filmmakers are not making it easy for the audience here- they don't want you involved, so to speak, but they want you transfixed, unnerved, horrified. And, ultimately, as I sat there chewing on my knuckles, that is exactly what happened.

It initially seems as though Masterson is simply adopted the familiar schematic of three different viewpoints on one story- the two brothers, and their father (Albert Finney)- but, as the film progresses and time crosses over itself, the narrative structure seems more unbalanced, and fittingly more dangerous. It shows you things and then doubles back, comprehending an understanding of something that possibly seemed out of place before. This is particularly the case with Hoffman's character: at first he seems somewhat of a vulgar dullard, but then moments highlight his crafty selfishness, and further progression reveals his self-destructive volatility. One particularly clever moment- and this won't really spoil anything- sees Hoffman's Andy shoot a pathetic sleeping figure who is clear echo of himself. Even these characters dislike themselves, for all they want is to escape- and, as Tomei makes abundantly clear in her final scene, they don't even know how to do that properly. These may be a collective of unlikeable, or else vague and unknowable, people, but there is no joy or happiness found in this- the tragic crescendo is almost a release, an escape as volatile and crass as the characters have proved themselves to be.

It helps that those involved are on such pitch-perfect form. Hoffman, in a role very different from his other 2007 performances (in The Savages and Charlie Wilson's War), moves through the character like a ferocious bulldog, understanding how greasy his Andy is when trying to be charming, how unbalanced he is with regard to his emotions. Andy is often shown red-faced- not from embarassment, but from the sheer fatuousness of his life. Andy wants more than he deserves, and he cares about no one in getting there. Hawke, meanwhile, may not bear much of a physical resemblance to his 'brother', but he knows his character just as well, reflecting a strange mirror image of Andy in his character Hank- Hanks hates his life, himself, is terrified and nervy, and, at one point, is such a wreck that Hawke's facial muscles seem to go into spasm. (Lumet keeps close up on this- you can't escape the trembling consequences.) Finney is somewhat undermined by having his character turn into a one man vendetta, but earlier in the film he is poignant and just a little bit aggressive like Andy (his lesser favourite). And Tomei, while without her own titles or insight, turns a possibly one-dimensional character into somewhat of an enigma who doesn't even know herself- the film doesn't ask what she wants, but maybe that's just as well, because Gina doesn't seem to know either.

Carter Burwell's score is as exactly verbose as the story, and his grand melodies really aid in amping up the feeling of Greek tragedy mentioned earlier. You get the sense that Before the Devil Knows You're Dead isn't meant to be treated as real, but as high drama, or some kind of morality tale- don't do this shit, kids, Lumet would be saying, if he weren't so horrified himself that any explicit finger wagging is thankfully excluded. For such a grand old age (83!), Lumet seems to have found some kind of energy again, for his direction is tight and controlled, keeping the different pitchs of performance balanced out, toying slyly with his audience with some truly shocking moments, and gliding effortlessly through the story's tragic pitches. This really is a filmmaker on the top of his game once more.

It's not easy to like Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. But, somehow, that's what I've ended up doing. It's grimy depiction of a New York gone desperate is hardly uplifting, but I certainly found an emotional release in the story, a perfect culmination of two hours of unbalanced nastiness, and I walked out feeling, not happy, but shaken, somehow changed. B+