Issues In The Movie Doubt

The 2008 film Doubt by John Patrick Shanley centers around a controversial principal of a Catholic school who has suspicions about the school’s and church’s priest concerning his honesty and purity. Sister Aloysius, the principal of the school, strict and traditional principal who is very set in her ways. While Father Flynn, the priest, has a very progressive and unorthodox nature approach to his priesthood. The central conflict within this film is Sister Aloysius’s suspicions about Father Flynn’s developing relationship with one of the school boys – Donald Miller. She believes that Father Flynn has developed a rather unbiblical relationship with Donald, and she plans to find out the truth. I have chosen to analyse the final scene of the

Did Father Flynn really do anything wrong? Is her “state of reconcilable doubt” her punishment for trying to do God’s judging? Or, did she in fact save young Donald Miller from future pain and scaring? These are just a few of the questions that leave the audience begging for answers. However, according to Veronica Ryan this “anguished state” that we are left with is exactly what Shanley intended. This scene, and the entire film, are meant to leave the audience questioning their own decisions in order to force them to ponder their own self-doubts. Shanley’s intentions for this film are to vividly depict his idea that certainty is temporary but “doubt is infinite” (Ryan). Especially when decisions seem to be justified. As seen in the final scene Sister Aloysius validates her lies to Father Flynn because she claims it was in the “pursuit of wrongdoing,” yet she is left in an even more “doubtful” state of mind than ever before. Through Sister Aloysius’s convictions and the “admirably complex” and “ambiguous” ending of this film, Shanley succeeds in his goal of leaving the audience doubting the decisions in their own