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-

The History Boys and The Return

[The History Boys (Nicholas Hytner, 2006): Alan Bennett's play was a sweeping success when it hit Broadway, grabbing several Tony awards and gaining glowing notices. Bennett adapted it himself for this film version, and much of the cast was kept intact, with stars Richard Griffiths and Frances de la Tour reprising their supporting roles as teachers at a British school in the 1980s. Having just gained excellent A Level results, eight boys are being pushed by their headteacher (a hilariously selfish Clive Merrison) to get into Oxford and Cambridge, the best universities in the country, and to do so they'll have to stay one more term at their old school, preparing for the entry exams with their experienced, portly teacher, whom they have nicknamed Hector (Griffiths) and a new arrival, Tom Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore), hired precisely to prepare the boys, but with the headteacher dangling a position as History teacher under his nose as incentive. The History Boys is a warm, affectionate film about a group of unruly boys and their equally unruly teachers; it's sharply and pointedly written and well-performed. But as, in it's second half, the film slides into a rather muggy quagmire of homosexual dilemmas between the two teachers and two of the boys, it rather loses its lustre, slightly loses its edge and ultimately takes on a rather uncomfortable aura of tragedy. But, nevertheless, it's well worth seeing. Hytner finds a surprisingly cinematic possibility within the film's stage origins, never truly overcoming them but adeptly using his camera, especially as he cross-cuts between various conversations in the school's corridors. As for the cast, Griffiths is excellent, a perfectly judged mixture of bouyant humour and deeply-hidden tragedy, while Moore, that enormously underrated actor from the enormously underseen Bright Young Things, follows up on the promise he showed there with a sharp and moving performance as a teacher who becomes as confused as his pupils. De la Tour isn't given enough to do but is very wily when she does appear: a terrific performance of an overlooked woman who wants the best for her boys, since she was never able to have it herself. Of the boys themselves, Dominic Cooper is ruggishly charming and, in his last scenes, alarmingly direct as Dakin, the object of many affections, while Russell Tovey, as the dimmest boy Rudge, finds surprising weight in his under-written role, and Samuel Anderson is an amusing highlight as Crowther, who seems to be the one everyone goes to with their problems. Maybe Bennett leans too much towards the provlocations of homosexuality in some characters and overlooks the others, but The History Boys is well worth seeing for it's sharp wit and solid performances when it comes round your way. Grade: B]

[The Return (Andrei Zvyagintsev, 2004): A notably chilly film, this took the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in its year and walked away with some positive comparisons to premiere Russian director Tartovsky. Ivan Dobronranov is superb as Ivan, a young teenager whose father (Konstantin Lavronenko) suddenly reappears after twelve years, unknown by Ivan and his brother Andrey (Vladimir Garin, who died in the very place of the opening scene just one day before the film's premiere) excepting one photograph. This familiar tale of a father returning from the wilderness is given an intriguing edge by director Zvyagintsev, who admirably refuses to give in to any desire to explain anything: the father sticks to his silence about where he was, and it is left to the audience to draw their own conclusions from the few visual clues we're given, and of course from Lavronenko's superb performance. The cool blue colour schemes are notably reminiscent of The Deep End, a thriller which also took place around a cold watery location and had similar themes of secrecy and mistrust. The Return is never predictable, despite occasions when it almost leans that way, but it's cool demeanour is rather off-putting and it's never as entrancing as it clearly wants itself to be- and, indeed, as you find yourself wanting it to be. Grade: B]