Yes, you do want to see a movie about nuns (Doubt)

Engaging, challenging, provocative, terrific film. I went with a group of eight people, all kinds of home-for-the-holidays ages, and everyone enjoyed it, in no small part because filmmaker/playwright John Patrick Shanley respects his audience; he assumes we know how to think. Doubt is played out on such an intimate level that it is sometimes uncomfortable (or “really intense” as our teen viewers observed); you feel as though you have inadvertently walked in on a very private conversation. But it is worth it. Meryl Streep is astounding as the nun who believes the priest in her parish (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is abusing children – she is by turns terrifying, heart breaking, and then, abruptly, a practical and practiced school administrator. Astonishing. Philip Seymour Hoffman is terrific, and Amy Adams pulls off yet another surprising and wonderful performance: at age 35 she has played a fairy princess, a knocked up teenager, and a nun. Who gets to do that? Final kudos to Viola Davis, as the mother of the possibly abused boy – she has a very short scene, but it’s with Meryl Streep, and she more than holds her own.