How Can This Movie Not Be Good?

Ron Smith

Award Winning Cast

Meryl Streep, two time Academy Award Winner; Best Supporting Actresss 1980 Kramer vs. Kramer.

Best Actress 1983 Sophie’s Choice. And many more awards. More awards than  mustaches in Mexico.

Philip Seymore Hoffman, Best actor, Capote 2005 and Amy Adams, remember her from Enchanted? She was also a waitress at Hooters at one time. She was amongst us.

Well Written, Excellent Acting

Set in the Bronx, 1964. Streep brings the part of a good sister of the church to the front of the pew. She is the woman to reckon with. Students, parents and superiors alike better be on your best behavior. No rulers across the wrist but the punishment she can delve out can be more painful. Don’t mess with her. If the rules are to be broken, LOOK OUT!

A Heated Exchange

Well there is just one thing… maybe you could break the rules if you are the watcher of the rules, after all it does serve a good purpose. Right?Streep's acting is so believable, there is a scene where she and the Priest Father Flynn (Hoffman), have a heated exchange and she asks him a question. The theater is so quiet, you can hear a pin drop - until the guy sitting next to me answers unintentionally out loud before I can. That’s bringing the character home.

Improprieties

Father Flynn is suspected of acting improperly with a young boy student. Imagine that. In the Rectory? Sister Aloysius (Streep), instructs Sister James (Adams), to keep her eyes open and report anything suspicious back to her. Well, it doesn’t take long before the web gets tangled and the kettle boils over and away we go.

Who's Right?

All hell breaks loose. Sister Aloysius will have none of that, she will have her justice, and purity will reign. She is right, until we hear Father Flynn's reasoning, then maybe she isn’t right. And the mother of the young boy? When we hear from her we are still confused. Did he do it or didn’t he?  Is Sister Aloysius right or is Father Flynn accused unjustly?

When you get home with your friends and you sit around the kitchen table with pie and coffee, maybe a scotch or holy water with lemon and salt, you will each have a different opinion. Did it happen? Was the resolution the right one?

Who was right?

You will have DOUBT.

Cast and Credits