DOUBT

Written and Directed by John Patrick Shanley
Starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams


Father Flynn: What do you mean you’re not sure?

There is no doubt in my mind that John Patrick Shanley is a brilliant writer. His Pulitzer Prize winning play, DOUBT, also went on to win the Tony for Best Play and has now spawned a big screen adaptation starring three of Hollywood’s most gifted stars. Getting the man who created the characters and who buried such profound dilemmas deep within his words to bring his own play to life on screen must have seemed like a scenario only the angels could have arranged for in heaven. Sadly, the results are more purgatorial than heavenly. Shanley’s unique understanding of the material is evident in every impeccable performance given but his lack of experience as a filmmaker (his only previous experience directing was in 1990 with JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO) ultimately leaves the film feeling flatter than one would hope, especially when the material calls for a hellishly passionate fire.
Still, given the gravity of the subject matter and the manner in which the cast delivers it, I doubt anyone will care.


The reality is that Shanley’s inexperience only stops a good film from being great. The genius of the script itself is not only engaging but challenging and provocative. Just as the day begins with mass for so many, especially more so in 1964, so should a film that questions the very foundation of religious belief – faith. As the young alter boys prepare to assist with the serving of mass, one may wonder why any boys are still allowed to become alter boys. The image itself is now almost intrinsically linked to pedophilia and abuse. Still, boys continue to volunteer because they have faith and they are looking for a way to express it. Once the parishioners have taken their seats, they hear a sermon that casts doubt over the decency of the decisions they make on a daily basis. It is ironic really, considering they go this very same place to alleviate these doubts. It is this constant duality and questioning that makes DOUBT so meaningful and faith so fragile.


At the St. Nicholas Church School in New York City’s Bronx neighborhood, the young students don’t have room for doubt in their lives. Doubt doesn’t fit in a world ruled by structure and regulation. This is especially true when breaking the rules means having to face the most frightening nun I have ever seen, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep). One ordinarily might think that people who choose to serve God, or for whom God has chosen a life of servitude, must have a heartfelt devotion to their creator, matched only by their appreciation for the beautiful He created. Streep’s Aloysius though seems to solely be on guard for the devil and it is her certainty that drives her to fish it out in Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Having nothing to go on but the loosely drawn conclusions of a fellow nun (Amy Adams), her accusation that Father Flynn may have acted inappropriately with a young alter boy is all she needs to create doubt.


We are apparently all too quick to assume the worse but Shanley’s script is far too knowing to wholly confirm or deny the truth. This is the trouble with doubt; unless confirmed, it will never be anything more than a plaguing suspicion. And while you need no proof to believe in God, you need just as little to believe in the devil. This is the genius of DOUBT; Shanley’s parable, for all its intense and transformative drama, can be broken down to a simple flip of a coin, where heads is faith and tails is doubt.

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK

Written and Directed by Charlie Kaufman
Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Hope Davis and Catherine Keener


Caden Cotard: We’re all hurdling towards death and yet, here we are, each of us knowing that we’ll die and each of us hoping that we won’t.

It doesn’t take a genius to acknowledge Charlie Kaufman as a genius or something awful close to it. Genius can move the world forward and illuminate the darkest of spaces. Genius can also go right over the heads of all those who are not as fortunate to be counted among the world’s smartest. I don’t mean to imply that Kaufman intentionally speaks over the heads of his audience in his directorial debut, SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, but rather that he simply didn’t communicate his insight as succinctly as he could have. Kaufman was smart to surround himself with a cast of actors talented enough to pull off the enormously ambitious scope of his project, but despite raising many an intriguing question, he provides very few answers.


Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden Cotard, a Schenectady, New York, resident and theatre director. We meet Caden on what could be pretty much be any morning, it would seem. He is reading random headlines from the paper; his wife, Adele (Catherine Keener) is staring blankly out the window, and their daughter, Olive (Sadie Goldstein) is contentedly eating her cereal, watching cartoons and asking if she should be concerned about the colour of her poop. It is on this morning, the morning like all the others, that Caden’s life takes that last step over the edge and begins falling to its inevitable demise. His body betrays him with inexplicable afflictions; his wife betrays him shortly after and runs off to Europe with their daughter; and it isn’t long before he is crying in the middle of sex. Anyone in Caden’s position would probably question their reason for living but once Caden gets started on this slippery slope, he realizes just how hard it is to get back up and out.


Caden and Kaufman are not so far from each other. They are both men stuck in their own heads who cannot fully function in society with all its rules and expectations. Caden proceeds to begin mounting his masterpiece when his life falls apart in order to climb out of his own hole. The concept, if you can call it that, is essentially a recreation of everything that is happening in Caden’s life. Seeing it in front of him is supposed to make it all make sense. All it does though is encourage is obsessive self-thinking, to say nothing of the self-loathing. Meanwhile, Kaufman, the man who concocted this complex web, gets tangled up in how intricate it all is. Caden hires an actor to play himself, an assistant and an actress to play that assistant. Before you know it, there is another actor who has stepped in to play Caden and he is bumped to the role of a cleaning lady. It’s art imitating life trying desperately to make sense of what the art really means. Kaufman throws so many concepts up on the screen and alone, some of them are calming while others are chaotic, but never do all of them come together to say anything clearly.


Watching SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK is like being trapped in Kaufman’s mind for a couple of hours. There is beauty everywhere around you; there is insight to be imparted at every turn. There is also too much to process in just one sitting. That being said, sitting with it too long only leads to many more unanswered questions and Kaufman has been sitting with it non-stop for years now. He fell deep into the dark caves of his mind and gave us what he could to make sense of it but it wasn’t enough. And if Kaufman can’t make sense of his own genius mind, I’m not sure how he expected us to do it.

THE SAVAGES

Written and Directed by Tamara Jenkins


John Savage: Your life is much more portable than mine.
Wendy Savage: What does that mean? Like a toilet? Like a port-o-potty?

What better time of year to talk about family? The holidays bring families together. Differences are put aside; memories are shared. I don’t know about you but this warm, fuzzy Christmas wish is not what happens when my family gets together. We’re lucky enough if we actually manage to get together. Still, we are far from savages … far from THE SAVAGES, that is. Now this is a real family. Mom left when little John and Wendy Savage were still prepubescent. They suddenly found themselves under the sole care of Lenny Savage but his idea of care included neglect and beatings. Now, Wendy Savage (Laura Linney) is nearly 40 and temping to support herself while she dreams of being a playwright in New York City. John Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a theatre professor who has success but carries himself like a failure. As for dear old Dad, Lenny Savage (Philip Bosco) went off and made a home for himself in Sun City, Arizona. He moved in with his lover and the two were together until her death. With dementia and Parkinson’s disease settling in, Lenny is no longer capable of taking care of himself. John and Wendy, having washed their hands of the old man years ago, now have to take responsibility for what is theirs, whether they want to or not. We can run as far away as we want but family is still family.


You would never guess but THE SAVAGES is actually pretty darn funny. Tamara Jenkins both wrote and directed the film, wise to realize that her harsh reality would be difficult to swallow without a little sugar added. In fact, this is the script’s greatest triumph. Life is messy and you will get your hands dirty if you decide to go outside. Still, no matter how hard it gets, laughter makes it easier and Jenkins can see humour in even this dark scenario. The laughter serves not only to put her audience at ease but it slowly heals the Savages as well as they find themselves seeing life more honestly than they ever have before. Nothing forces people to live in the present more than the promise of death. With Lenny reaching the end of his line, John and Wendy must do something they have never done before; they must grow up. (It’s no wonder their surnames are taken directly from the Peter Pan stories.) Growing up for these two means turning around to face the very man they have been running from for their entire lives, seeing him as the fragile human being he is and releasing him of the blame they have laid on him and hid behind for as long as they can recall.


John and Wendy must learn to forgive in order to move on. Simple enough of a concept, perhaps too simple, but Jenkins is smart enough to know that this is a nuanced, sometimes torturous process and one that would require a higher caliber performer to convey. Wendy Savage is essentially paralyzed. She wants to be a writer but lacks the confidence to make that happen. While she lives in the shadow of her brother’s numerous degrees, she makes the cubicle rounds and seems to be waiting for someone to acknowledge her talent as worthy before standing up for it herself. Linney plays Wendy as a woman who knows she deserves more from everyone in her life, including herself, but hasn’t quite figured out how to make that necessity manifest. Meanwhile, brother John doesn’t dress up for funerals, refers to his father as a situation and signs sympathy cards without reading them first. His work is his life and he refuses to feel for anyone but as Hoffman goes from sternly controlling his sister to crying privately in the bathroom in the middle of the night over a woman he does not know how to love, it becomes obvious that the feelings he is trying so hard to suppress will be coming out regardless. The Savage siblings will come a long way from only being able to say, “I love you,” on a balloon.


It would be entirely left field to call THE SAVAGES preachy or overly critical but Jenkins does still draw our attention to some truly savage human behavior – our treatment of the elderly. While the orderlies and nurses are doing their best, they clearly lack funding to make their residents feel as comfortable as possible. Regardless of how you lived your life, there is no reason it should end in small room made even smaller by a curtain that cuts it in half. The elderly may be dying but they aren’t already dead and that’s the way we’re treating them. Jenkins and her sensitive, honest film should be commended for not wagging a judgmental finger in the faces of the characters or the audience but rather showing all involved that caring for our elders in their final hours is definitely hard but there is still laughter to be found in the days before darkness falls.

CAPOTE

Written by Dan Futterman
Directed by Bennett Miller

Admittedly, I am not the most literate fella. Consequently, the name Truman Capote means something to me but simply for its notoriety and not for his work or anything else of worth that should continue to give his name meaning years after his death. I expected Bennett Miller’s film to be something of a crash course on Capote’s life. I would leave there with the half-sense of being educated on the man – an expectation so many of us put on the movies. Dan Futterman’s script takes a different approach though as he chooses to focus on the six years Capote spent writing his last novel, “In Cold Blood”. The editorial decision sways our judgment and forces us to view the man’s entire life in this one blip in the grander scheme. Despite the narrow scope on Capote’s life this presents, there is still a rich sense of character, encompassing history and heritage as well as a conflict in the present that hints at an imminent unraveling.

This challenging feat comes to fruition thanks to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s metamorphic portrayal of Capote. Again, not being familiar with the actual Truman Capote, it’s hard to say that Hoffman embodied him but I can say that he was definitely not himself. His round frame is draped in understated style; his thick, dark-rimmed glasses fit perfectly with his slicked, blonde hair. We first meet Truman at an upper-class party. He is the epicenter of the conversation and all are transfixed on his stories of gossip and innuendo. We can see on his face how much he enjoys the audience and hear it in his high-pitched squeak of a voice how much he revels in his successful life as anyone with that mousy and effeminate a voice must have been the one gossiped about previously and not the one doing the gossiping. As Capote, Hoffman enters rooms with gusto and presence but there is a hint of hesitation as he is aware of the reaction his demeanor and clearly identifiable homosexuality incites from people, be they in New York City where he lives or Kansas, where he is researching his novel. He is completely oblivious to nearly everyone else’s existence and this ultimately commands the attention he deserves but there is a small boy’s fear that causes him to overcompensate by playing it up to see how far he can go as well as protect his fragile nature.

Hoffman balances two distinct sides of Capote so well that by the close of the film, even he appears to not understand how his life ended up where it did. These two sides are sincerity and artifice. In order to gain the trust of Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.), one of the murderers who will serve as the inspiration for his novel, he must pretend to care about Smith as he waits to die on death row. After their initial meeting, Smith behind bars and Capote offering him medication like a banana to a monkey at the zoo, Capote continues to see him as just that, an animal, a paycheck. As their relationship persists and they spend more time together, a bond inevitably forms and the lines between despondency and compassion blur. As Smith’s time on death row nears its end, Capote seems overtaken with something he cannot process, an emotional attachment to another human being.

Watching Capote’s descent from confidence and control is both painful and uplifting. It may not be a pretty picture but realizing that you have a lot in common with a cold-blooded murderer is definitely humbling.