Doubt: what happened in the rectory

I think I know what happened behind the scenes in Doubt.

I know, I know. It's not supposed to matter: this is a film about doubt, for Pete's sake. It "isn’t about certainty, but ambiguity, that no man’s land between right and wrong, black and white" (Manohla Dargis, the New York Times); it's "not primarily a movie about a hot button topic but rather ... a comment on the potential futility in trying to impose moral clarity and unambiguous order on the murk of human motives and behavior" (Ray Greene, boxoffice.com).

Still, most of us don't leave the cinema debating the limits of moral clarity. We want to know what really happened in the rectory, and we wonder what Sister Aloysius doubted in the last scene. And because there seems to be no way of finding out, some of us feel just a tiny bit cheated. Richard Alleva, writing in Commonweal magazine, comments:

Ambiguity in drama and literature has had good press throughout the last century, and rightly so. If a novel, play, or movie is to reflect the depth and multifariousness of life, it’s bound to introduce uncertainties into plot and characterizations. But there is ambiguity and then there is ambiguity. There is the sort that points toward the underlying mysteries of existence, and there is the kind that results from the writer withholding basic information.

... You won’t be able to make up your mind about the priest, but that is simply because Shanley withholds decisive information about him, not because of richly layered characterization. What transpired in the rectory remains unseen and unknown.... The movie aims to instill doubt in the viewer and succeeds in doing so. But is Doubt’s doubt a truly disturbing emotion communicated by a probing work of art, or is it just the uncertainty we have to feel whenever we don’t have the facts of a case?

I agree with critics who liked the film because it shines a light on "the murk of human motives and behavior." I appreciate that it is not a mystery but a parable (the stage version is subtitled "A Parable"), and like all parables it reverses our expectations and leaves us with more questions than answers. Still, lover of whodunits that I am, I'm not satisfied to leave it undecided. Like Richard Alleva, I want to know what happened.

And now I think I do.

Warning: If you haven't seen Doubt yet, you'd better stop reading right now. You can always come back to this page later.

What Father did

Did Father Flynn molest Donald, or did he merely offer the boy friendship and protection? Throughout the first half of the film, we assume Donald is isolated because he is the first African-American student in this Irish-Italian school. Then we learn from his mother that the boy has suffered in school and at home because he is gay ("that way" is how she describes his orientation).

The filmmaker seems to be telling us that Father Flynn is also gay. There are the references to his impeccably groomed long fingernails, the pressed flowers in his missal, his joke about his not getting any girls to dance with him. I think Flynn looks at Donald and sees his younger, hurting self. I think he loves the boy and wants to protect him.

What goes on in the rectory? Maybe Flynn abused Donald. It's an easy conclusion to jump to, given the thousands of cases of priestly pedophilia uncovered over the last 50 years. But do Donald's reactions seem consistent with abuse? Does Donald's mother think the priest is harming her son? Would Father Flynn embrace the boy openly right after being accused of molesting him? Is Sister James's faith in Father Flynn just another sign of her naïveté? And why is there no evidence whatsoever that abuse has occurred?

Consider this possible alternate scenario: Flynn hears the boy's confession, whether sacramentally or casually made. He probably reassures Donald that it's OK to be gay. Maybe he encourages him in his stated wish to become a priest. He may even tell Donald that he himself is gay, promising to be there when he needs him.

Whatever happened between them, Donald has entrusted the priest with what, to this set of classmates, is still his secret. And Flynn is not about to betray Donald by telling Sister Aloysius what the boy said.

Once Sister goes on the warpath, Father Flynn is afraid. Not because she's right about his relationship with Donald, but because he doesn't want to lose his job yet another time. After all, there's some reason he didn't stay long at his previous parish assignments. Maybe his gay orientation became known. Maybe he was more outspoken about changes needed in the Church than his superiors wanted him to be. Maybe he knows that Roman hierarchs seem unable to distinguish between homosexuality and pedophilia and fears that Sister's charges will mean the end of, not only his job, but his vocation.

Flynn is afraid. He has secrets. But this does not mean he is guilty as charged.

Why Sister doubts

Viewers are puzzled not only about the priest's actions but also about Sister Aloysius's doubts. Why does this strong-willed woman suddenly confess to doubting? What are her doubts about?

Some think she is doubting Father Flynn's guilt. If so, this is a sudden, inexplicable shift that occurs mid-paragraph as she talks with Sister James, and there's no artistic or psychological reason for it.

Some think she is doubting God. Maybe, but God plays a very minor role in this drama.

I think the script is clear: from start to finish, Sister is utterly certain of the priest's guilt. She is simply not given to existential angst. What Sister doubts is not his guilt but the Church--which, in Roman Catholic terms, means the hierarchy.

Remember when she chides Sister James for tackling problems on her own when she should be referring them to the principal? Everyone reports to someone higher, she explains. The system is there; use it.

But by the end of the film, Sister Aloysius knows that the system is broken. She can't go to Father with her problems: he is the problem, or so she believes. She won't talk with the priest in his former parish, because she doesn't trust him to tell the truth. She eventually does go to Flynn's boss, the monsignor, but he predictably protects the priest. And when the bishop eventually moves Father Flynn to a different position, it is to a larger parish that also has a school.

Enough doubt to go around

Doubt was set in the last two months of 1964. Three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi that year. China detonated its first atomic bomb. The Vietnam war was escalating. Massive protests broke out at U.C. Berkeley. Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison for opposing Apartheid. Bob Dylan's protest songs were gaining a large audience. And the second Vatican council was in full swing, turning the Catholic church into something its older members barely recognized. Director John Patrick Shanley could not have chosen a more appropriate time for his parable.

I wish Meryl Streep, who is one of my favorite actors, had chosen to play Sister Aloysius with more restraint. Perhaps I'm willing to exonerate Father Flynn simply because Philip Seymour Hoffman played him with such subtlety and compassion. Sister A, by contrast, was a laughable caricature, when she could have been portrayed as a strong woman fighting for justice. This is a woman who, with only an inadequate, poorly trained staff, ran an inner-city elementary school whose graduates went on to good high schools. This is a woman who had the guts to stand up to the establishment on behalf of a gay black student. This is a woman who suspected child abuse decades before it would become the cause célèbre of journalists and lawyers.

Yes, I think she was mistaken. But she wasn't crazy.