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Last night I finally got around to watching the movie Doubt with Meryl Streep, Phillip Hoffman, and Amy Adams. I have a question I am sure many others had thought about because of the end of the movie where Sister Aloysius breaks down to Sister James and tells her "I have such doubts." I was wondering what you guys think she was doubting. I am unsure whether she doubted if Father Flynn is actually a predator or if she was doubting her church or doubting even the existence of god? So I turn to reddit.
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Oh my lord, I love this film. I think everyone had fantastic performances, especially Hoffman and Viola Davis.
To answer your question. I think Meryl Streep's character cried at the end because she had to lie, commit a sin, to prove to herself that Father Flynn was guilty. And had doubts about herself.
Not only this but also her doubts were rooted in her faith. If you remember, they kept doing a close-up on the cross. She had been through the death of her husband and was a pretty joyless woman, always looking for the bad in people.
For a woman of her stature and years in the Catholic church, to not truly have faith in God, it must have been horrendous. She thought that Father Flynn was an evil man and the fact that he was moving up in the hierarchy of the religion she had devoted her life to made her feel doubt.
Thanks for the answer!
I'm sad I can only give you one upvote on this analysis. Very well put and clear, it's short, sweet, and to the point. Also, a very intense and awesome film!
Do you think she may have also doubted her motivation? Throughout the film, Father Flynn tries to get in step with Vatican 2 and modernize his parish, while Meryl's character fights hard against change: the picture of the old Pope, the ball point pens, secular Christmas songs, etc. I think she wanted to rout out Father Flynn as a symbol of progress and used her hunch of indiscretion as a vehicle to attack him. Maybe she had doubts about her true motivation.
Definitely!
How do you know she had a husband? Im not “doubting” you, but i really dont understand where you pulled that information from.
She mentions it in her conversation with either Mrs. Miller or Sister James, I can’t recall which, in her office. She shares that she was married before taking her vows as a nun, but lost her husband in World War II
She told the boys mother in her office that her husband had been in the war in Italy, and had died. Did you actually watch the movie?
You don't need to be rude about it. Not every remembers every second of every movie they've ever watched.
The ending of Doubt is pretty special, there are so many things that are left open to interpretation. Was Fr. Flynn guilty? Some people think he was, some don't. My own personal take was that he was gay but never molested anyone. He found a kindred spirit in Donald (being gay in a situation where it was a sin) and would explain why he wanted the church to be more liberal/accepting in general.
As for Sister Aloysius I think she doubts not one single doubt. She was doubting whether she did the right thing, doubting whether Fr. Flynn was guilty and most importantly (as you alluded to) doubts about her faith.
I didn't even consider this one. Maybe he was gay but not interested in children. Thanks for opening my eyes to yet another possible explanation!
I don't think there's any available evidence in the film for Flynn being gay, so it's not really a viable interpretation.
It could have just been his sympathy for the gay child that made him come off as homosexual. In an institution like the Catholic Church where so many moral issues are black and white, homosexuality being one of them, people such as Aloysius and Flynn are bound to clash. Flynn is clearly a more empathetic person whereas Aloysius falls into the black and white thinking category. Part of her "doubts" could have been a sense of empathy surfacing after being suppressed by her faith for so many years.
I love movies like Doubt because although we'll probably never come to a definitive answer as to what her doubts were, the film got us thinking. Those are by far my favorite kind of movies.
It’s not conclusive but the hints are there. His long fingernails are a conscious feminine choice for a man in the 60s. Also, the flowers he keeps in his bible are also a feminine choice for a man of his era. I think the suggestion that his past “sins” he was afraid of being uncovered are acts of homosexuality is a brilliant theory. It would explain his wish to keep things hidden but also his righteous indignation at being confronted.
I think the entire scene about the fingernails, and keeping them long, was a very subtle hint to exactly what you are talking about. Otherwise, it wouldn't really have made any sense in the film.
Incredible.
Gay????😅 you guys have a sick mind. I think he was not guilty, if he had done anything to that boy it wouldve happened. That sister didnt like him and it was her way or no other way. Preist was nice and treated people with love and kindness. Nowadays being nice is a weakness and gay. You guys have a twisted mind, im sure alot of the actual accusations on preists were lies too, not all preists are corrupt and bad just like cops and everything else..
What are you talking about.
The comment you're replying to literally says he wasn't guilty.
Why is thinking somebody might be gay a "sick mind"? It's not an instant l insult and it's mentioned TWICE that he may be gay but didn't touch the boy.
Regardless of the Father's orientation, it's quite clear Sister Aloysius believed he was gay.
Also.... YOU THINK THE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST PRIESTS ARE LIES 🫠 yes, because so many men are willing to say they were assaulted in a way that boys and men are often so ashamed of. What a common lie. 💀
I always took it that she had doubts about Father Flynn's guilt. I also find it interesting that the only people who know the writer's intentions (guilty or innocent) are the actors who have played Father Flynn.
The doubt being in Father Flynn's guilt was my first thought but the idea I wanted to believe least so I turned it to her guilt being about God. Thanks for the answer!
The reactions to this movie baffle me. I have always felt, with great confidence, that when she says "I have such doubts" she is doubting the correctness and righteousness of her religion and the Church, because she doesn't doubt that Father Flynn has done something bad. The entire movie portrays her as having an uncanny, almost mystical, hawk-like ability to detect Father Flynn's badness. She knows, in her heart, that he's done something bad, and his reactions to her accusations are hardly reassuring. Nothing happens in the movie, as far as I remember, that would make her waver from that confidence in her accusations.
More importantly: it simply makes for the best story. It's ironic: her certainty makes her doubt. It's tragic: she's given her whole life to the Church, and now questions its authority. It comments on the human condition: bad things happen to good people, and seemingly get away with it. It's profound: it enlarges the theme of the movie from arbitrary specifics about random characters, into questions of religion and philosophy more generally. We go from "do we doubt that this particular person did this particular deed" into "do we, more generally, doubt that a loving God exists and protects us?" It's subtle: the entire philosophical point is made without hitting the audience over the head with a neon sign saying "the argument from evil shows that religion is bullshit." That's a much better story than any other interpretation I've heard.
All of the other interpretations amount to: "you never were really sure what happened between these characters, and you'll never know for sure." That's like the ending of Burn Without Reading: a giant exercise in absurdism with no answers or insights. Doubt is much better than that.
What blows my mind is that there is no consensus about my interpretation. People I know and respect come away from the movie with a completely different interpretation, even if I think the interpretation is, in my view, awful and inferior to mine. And, no, I don't think this "everyone interprets it differently" effect is a good one. It makes me doubt my own sanity. I find myself like Sister Aloysius: confident that I'm right, which makes me doubt the opinions of everyone I loved and respected.
Yes.