Doubt

I've been kind of interested in seeing Doubt ever since it came out, but what with one thing and another, I never quite got around to it. When it popped up on TV a couple of nights ago, though, I thought I'd stay up and watch.

The titular doubt is what we have as a viewer over whether priest Philip Seymour Hoffman is up to a bit of cloister-room kiddy-fiddling, given that he apparently has taken an unhealthy interest in the only black boy in an Irish/Italian neighbourhood church school.

Meryl Streep launches a bit of a character assassination, even going so far as telling the boy's mother.

The story trots along well enough to keep you interested and guessing. And the performances are not bad overall, though it's far from the best performance I've seen from PSH. Amy Adams was fine, though, and Meryl was okay as a vile old nun.

The direction -- by the writer of the Pulitzer Prize-winning original play and this screenplay, Moonstruck writer John Patrick Shanley -- was a bit pedestrian.

For me, though, ultimately the film was let down by its ending, which kind of made me wish I hadn't bothered with the film at all.

Numbers: 44 out of 100.