I first read John Patrick Shanley's Doubt ASAP after it won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. I wasn't terribly impressed.
Last week, being a huge Meryl Streep fan, I saw the movie. She is terrific, and I'm ashamed to admit I had totally missed the humor in scenes that in the movie were amazingly funny and clever. But then there was end of the movie where Streep, the completely rigid nun who willingly "move(s) away from God" when evil is encountered and fought, breaks down and cries—a way-too-mild verb—about the doubts she has. Say what? Nothing in the Streep performance, at least IMHO, showed anything resembling doubt. The friend I saw it with said she turned a crucifix the wrong way, an indication of doubt, and that turning from God to fix wrongdoing showed doubt. BS!
Had the stage play ended, IMO, so jarringly? I got home, pulled the script and looked. Yep. The words were there. So why, for me at least, did the movie end so poorly?
Last night, still puzzling, I reread the script. Streep's characterization, in terms of the written text, was dead-on. There are no indications of doubt in the writing. But Streep's a better actress than that, and there was a director. Then I thought of something else. Stanley, the author, directed the film. Now, when I was a student in schools that had (still have, I think) good theatre departments, a rule of thumb was that playwrights should not direct their own work. Had I just seen evidence of that? Stanley has credentials for both writing and directing. He wrote Moonstruck and was an assistant director. For him, knowing the characters, maybe the end of Doubt was planned for. But such planning/foreshadowing sure didn't penetrate my mind.
Now I'm curious. Is anyone else feeling as stunned by the end of Doubt as I was?
Since I'd really like to know, I'm violating a rule—at least I think it's a rule—and double posting this entry. It's going in my book page thread because I have read the play, twice in fact, but I feel I might get more responses on what's bothering me if I let the movie have its on thread. Moderators, if the double posting remains illegal, even with the explanation, cut it from the book page. Or pm me, if that's the procedure, and I will.
