Movie Spotlight: Doubt

Though the subject matter of this film is centered around a serious issue that merits a spot in center stage, this movie is enticing on so many levels. First it asks the question: Do you have to know the truth? We talk about the importance of knowing the truth for the sake of moral gain, education, healthy relationships, and religious purity. Even the Bible encourages us to seek truth, God wants you to love truth and peace (Zechariah 8:19). Truth goes hand in hand with "wisdom, discipline and understanding" (Proverbs 23:23). God commands people to "Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts" (Zechariah 8:16). The Bible says that the way to choose truth is to set your heart on God's laws (Psalm 119:30). Most individuals are deeply ingrained with the idea that truth is the best option for us in ALL situations. But "Doubt" poses seemingly obvious questions which I invite you to seek answers for:

- Why are we so obsessed with knowing the truth?
- At the end of the day, what will knowing the truth do for us?
- Can the truth actually dis-empower us in certain situations?
- Does it make you feel better to know the truth or do you feel worse by the burden
of knowing that is now upon you?
- Once armed with the truth, is it then our responsibility to act upon it?
- What are we willing to give up in the name of truth?
- Who determines what is wrong anyway: social mores or personal tinges of guilt? Can
the sources be differentiated?
- Does finding the truth make a grand difference in the big and/or small picture?
- Do we really care about the truth itself or are we more concerned with the
grandiose feelings that may accompany discovering the unknown?
- Is truth relative/subjective or objective?

The actors played their roles superbly taking us on a journey of the human experience. Our seasoned vets, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep played their roles to perfection. Amy Adams and Viola Davis carved out irrevocable names for themselves as serious actors not to be reckoned with. Adams' facial expressions alone would allow her to depict this role just as poignantly in a silent movie. Hoffman's portrayal as a priest could have easily strayed from reality by slipping into the sphere of overacting, but Hoffman maintained believable balance in every scene. From beginning to end, Doubt employs nature as a vital element to the story. Nature represented the varied components and faces of truth through blatant use of light (natural and artificial), wind, sand, and rain. The use of these elements provided a stable foundation against the doubt cast throughout the story.

In the process of finding truth, we may employ deceptive means i.e. snooping into our spouses' private data to find evidence of cheating, eavesdropping on our child's phone conversation to find out whether she is really going to the movies with her best friend, or even denying about what the neighbor's child just told you about the physical abuse she has suffered at the hands of her father to protect her from further abuse.... Doesn't the truth seeker than become a culprit as well? Equally implicated in the name of vindication?

I finally ask you this: Do u feel better in the light or the dark? And does it even matter?