Jamie passion and passionfruit!

Mixed reviews for this film that is clearly an adaptation of a play but works onscreen because of its setting and its themes: goings on in the Catholic church in the US of 1964 and the issues of doubt and tolerance.  The screenplay is what you would expect and the maligned symbolism fits with the sense of a morality play as Father Flynn (the always effective Philip Seymour Hoffmann) and Sister Aloysius Beauvier (the sublime Meryl Streep) battle it out with her dogged determination to find the former guilty of paedophelia.  The central scene of the play is a stunner as Beauvier accompanies the mother of the boy in question on a walk and discovers a point of view that rocks her whole construction of the significance of the event.  Viola Davis is terrific as the mother and richly deserved her Oscar nom. Amy Adams as the naïve nun also does good work. It’s a bleak film which has the artifice of a play but which is so rich in meaning and implication and so well acted that I think the criticisms miss the point.  Definitely one of the better works this year.

* * * * +