27 February 2015

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Doubt (2008)

#inspirationalmovies


To close the little conversation on catholicism and women we've been having, here's a look from the other side. Doubt (John Patrick Shanley, 2008) is a forceful piece on the soft power of women in patriarchal structures and of the power of a personality, of someone convinced that she knows the truth and has to do anything possible to right the wrongdoing.

It is not a coincidence that Meryl Streep is in the center of this movie, offering a story of a school principal trying to make sure that her institution is living according to highest morals. The extraordinary force of the film comes exactly from the clash between her convictions of what's right and wrong and her willingness to ruthlessly purge the ranks of her organization (the catholic church) in case of doubt about someone's adequacy to form part of it.

It's beautifully filmed, Meryl is sublime, and her torment (not for nothing the movie is named Doubt) offers a tale familiar for most doing any activism: you have to deal with unclarity,  doubt, tensions between separating your own bias from the bigger picture.

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