Headlines - Reviews

By David Edelstein
New York Magazine
Excerpt, Movies
December 12, 2008

John Patrick Shanley's film of his every-award-under-God-winning play Doubt is a heavy slab of dramaturgy, dark-toned and somber, yet intense as hell. Even opened up for the screen, with air and...

By Peter Rainer
Christian Science Monitor
Excerpt
December 12, 2008

John Patrick Shanley's prize-winning 2005 play "Doubt," which has been brought to the screen under his own direction, is essentially an ensemble of voices. The two loudest belong to Sister Aloysius...

By Manohla Dargis
New York Times
Excerpt
December 12, 2008

The air is thick with paranoia in "Doubt," but nowhere as thick, juicy, sustained or sustaining as Meryl Streep's performance as a distrustful nun in John Patrick Shanley's screen adaptation of his stage play....

By Tom Maurstad

Excerpt
December 12, 2008

Most of the time, the appropriate response to the phrase "a film based upon a play" is to take it as a warning since, most of the time, films based on plays tend to be talky and stage-bound. Go figure.

That is not the...

By Ann Hornaday
Washington Post
Excerpt
December 12, 2008

A great actress delivers a breathtaking star turn in "Doubt," John Patrick Shanley's taut, twisty adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Her name is Viola Davis, and in one utterly galvanizing scene, she...

By Stephen Rebello
Playboy.com
Excerpt
December 12, 2008

Powerhouse performances, mouthfuls of gripping dialogue and an autumnal air of ambiguity, menace and loss supercharge Doubt, directed by John Patrick Shanley from his Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play set at a...

By Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle
Excerpt
December 12, 2008

Doubt" is a commendable rendering of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama. That it's faithful to its source should come as no surprise - Shanley directed the film and wrote the screenplay -...

By Peter Howell
Toronto Star
Excerpt
December 12, 2008

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself," says the FDR quote neatly written on a nun's blackboard, but the corrosive piety of Doubt presents a far more insidious threat.

In magnificently adapting his...