Doubt (2008)

Wow. This is powerful. Amy Adams, Viola Davis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Meryl Streep are all current and potential nominees for their work in this adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer prize winning play, adapted for the screen and directed by the playwright himself. Shanley, whose only other directing credit was for the uneven but absolutely wonderful Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), won the Oscar for writing the original screenplay for Moonstruck (1988). I had an acquaintance in LA whose claim to infame, for a while, was that he was the reader who had passed on (i.e. turned down) Shanley's Moonstruck script for Tri-Star Pictures. Anyway, Doubt is dark, taking place in a 1964 Catholic school in the Bronx, about a popular priest (Hoffman), who is suspected by two nuns, one the tyrannical principal (Streep) and the other a sweet teacher (Adams), of having more than an innocent friendship with the school's first black student, whose mother is played by Davis. I did not see the play, but in the movie, the weather adds a cinematic effect, frequently setting the tone. Just see it. Big screen is not essential, but the wind and rain (and one other thing) will do more for you in the cinema than in your living room. Read this interesting tidbit (the fifth item on imdb's trivia page) after you have seen it.