Doubt

A lot of reviews of this movie criticized director John Patrick Shanley's penchant for tilted cameras and dramatic angles, arguing that in his effort to make the film adaptation of his Tony-winning play more cinematic Shanley overdoes it with self-consiciously "movie-like" shots. To me, it felt exactly right. When I think of the Catholic Church, for some phantom reason, the images in my head; stained glass, swinging mitres, big jeweled hats, are ominously looming and canted. Shanley really nails the stiffness, oppression and self-denial of institutional life in general and Catholic school life in particular. I was all set to doush Meryl Streep with Haterade, as I tend to find her a bit of a brittle showboat, but her Bronx accent and myriad grimaces worked for a character straining at the seams with repression and self-abnegation. Phillip Seymour Hoffman brings serious heat as a shady priest, and Amy Adams puts her relentless cheefulness to good use, although I still want to see her play a child-murderer or a meth-addict or something.