Doubt (2008)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Making Of Featurette-2 Interviews-Cast Audio Commentary-Writer/Director
Rating
Year Of Production	2008
Running Time	99:45
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	John Patrick Shanley
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Meryl Streep Philip Seymour Hoffman Amy Adams Viola Davis Alice Drummond Audrie J. Neenan Susan Blommaert Carrie Preston
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Howard Shore

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Czech Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Czech Hungarian Russian Slovak Hebrew Ukranian Latvian Lithuanian Estonian Czech Audio Commentary Hungarian Audio Commentary Russian Audio Commentary Slovak Audio Commentary Hebrew Audio Commentary Ukranian Czech Titling Hungarian Titling Russian Titling	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Ever met someone that is completely convinced you or someone else has done something wrong despite their being no evidence? This movie, which is based on a stage play, explores the topic of doubt (or the lack of it) and its effects on people. This is a film about the characters and their preconceptions, thoughts, doubts and how they act on them rather than really being focused on the story. It is certainly not a loud, commercial megaplex style of film.

    The screenplay (by director & playwright John Patrick Shanley), which I am lead to believe is very similar to the play is the star here along with the excellent acting of the four main cast members. Shanley was Oscar nominated for the screenplay. All of the four main cast members were nominated for Academy Awards, Patrick Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Steep, Viola Davis & Amy Adams. Having said that their work is extremely well supported by the wonderful (as usual) cinematography of Roger Deakins. For a very theatrical style of film, his photography adds wonderful feeling to the piece such as a scene of feathers floating down amongst buildings signifying how gossip spreads without any control. There are many interesting camera angles, wonderful expressive lighting and some great images.

    The story is quite simple and involves a Catholic Priest in The Bronx in the mid 1960s. Father Flynn (Hoffman) is the parish priest of St Nicholas Catholic Church which includes a large congregation and a primary school. The school itself is run by a group of nuns, led by the conservative and strict Sister Aloysius (Streep). Among the group of nuns is the young and innocent Sister James (Adams) who teaches history. The film kicks off with Father Flynn delivering a sermon about doubt, seemingly to try to help the congregation understand how to cope with doubt better. Sister Aloysius takes this sermon to mean that Father Flynn is having doubts about his own faith and/or actions. She instructs the nuns to keep alert to concerning behaviour without being specific. When Father Flynn calls one of the altar boys, Donald Miller out of class for a private chat in the rectory, Sister James reports this behaviour along with some other things she has seen to Sister Aloysius, who immediately decides that Flynn is guilty of abusing the boy. She has no doubt. Who is right, who is in the wrong?

    Viola Davis is excellent as the boy’s mother and a scene with her and Sister Aloysius walking and talking is an acting highlight of the film. The emotion and power in this scene is quite amazing immediately grabbing my attention. Once again the cinematography in the sequence is also wonderful.

    Although the story here is not overly complex the quality of the dialogue, acting and cinematography make this excellent cinema. Highly Recommended to fans of quality drama and acting especially if you enjoy films that do not reveal everything and leave you something to think about.

Video

    The feature is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was very sharp and clear throughout about as good as SD gets. Shadow detail is very good.

    The colour was excellent well representing the sombre colour palette.

    The only artefact I noticed was some minor edge enhancement such as at 70:50.

    There are subtitles in English, English for the hearing impaired and nine other European languages. The English subtitles were clear and easy to read. Subtitles are available for the commentary in the foreign languages and there is also titling for the foreign language audio tracks.

    There is no noticeable layer change during the feature.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is very good, perfectly suited to the nature of the film.

    This DVD contains six audio options, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 384Kb/s, the same in Czech, Hungarian & Russian, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Audio Descriptive soundtrack encoded at 192Kb/s and the Director's commentary (2.0 192Kb/s).

    Dialogue was easy to understand and clear throughout.

    The score is by Howard Shore and although it is somewhat understated  it has an atmospheric and haunting quality which adds significantly to the film.

    The surround speakers were well used in the context of a dialogue based film for music and mild surround effects such as closing doors and the sounds of weather.

    The subwoofer was used for music mostly.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is well designed getting you into the film because of its motion and music bringing the film's atmosphere to the menu.

From Stage to Screen (18:23)

    A better than average making of which covers the original play, background and inspiration for the story, locations, casting and other topics. The cast and crew's obvious passion for this film makes it clear this was no ordinary project for them.

The Cast of Doubt (13:53)

    Another quality extra. I expected this to be a collection of the usual promotion interview material but instead it is a group discussion of the four main cast members and a journalist from Entertainment Weekly. They talk about how the film challenges an audience and themes to think about. Well worth watching.

Scoring Doubt (4:28)

    Featurette on Howard Shore, how he worked with the director and his composing process.

Sisters of Charity (6:14)

    Featurette on the nuns which the director and Meryl Streep spent time with to understand being a nun.

Audio Commentary - Writer/Director John Patrick Shanley

    A decent commentary which is quite scene specific. It is quite personal in that he talks about lots of little things and their relationship to his childhood. He also discusses casting and the characters. He is quite a good speaker but a little dry.

    The Region 1 DVD release of this film includes the same extras but does not have all the audio options available here. Region 4 by a nose. The film is available on Blu-ray locally and in Region A.

    The video quality is excellent.

    The audio quality is very good.

    Quality set of relevant extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall