Following are mini reviews of two I’ve seen.

First Man (Oct. 12)

Daniel McFadden/Universal Pictures

Ryan Gosling reunites with his Oscar-winning La La Land director Damien Chazelle for this Neil Armstrong biopic, culminating in Armstrong’s landing on the moon.

The visuals are awe-inspiring and the acting is beautifully subtle—from Gosling and Claire Foy as Armstrong’s first wife, Janet—but perhaps Chazelle stayed too close to Armstrong’s stoic spirit.

While I admire the movie and respect the craftsmanship, I can’t say I was deeply moved by it. But see it in IMAX and you can almost cross off a trip to the moon from your bucket list, because Chazelle makes you feel like you’ve already been there.

Widows (Nov. 16)

20th Century Fox

“Hoo-weee, this movie’s intense.” That was the first thing I said to Mr. PCN when Widows ended.

Based on the novel by Lynda La Plante (Prime Suspect), this heist thriller was adapted for the screen by Gillian Flynn and Steve McQueen, with the latter also directing.

Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, and Elizaeth Debicki give gritty, riveting performances as women whose men left them in a bad way. Their lives are threatened when shady characters want the women to repay their former lovers’ debts. The women give payback, all right.

The characters are strong but messily and realistically so. They’re not wonder women but regular folk tired of being messed with. Tony winner Cynthia Erivo joins the trio later in the heist’s planning stages, but they find she’s a quick learner.

Remember how Daniel Kaluuya’s character was unnerved by all the creepy white people in Get Out? His performance in Widows made me feel like that. He is a nasty piece of work here.

Flynn does what she does best—give us portraits of complicated women capable of whatever men do, with all the good and ugly and in between. McQueen ratchets up the tension so much, I was often holding my breath.

Heist movies aren’t my favorite subgenre, but this one is less about the score than people in desperate situations finding their mettle. It’s a character study—on steroids.

Which fall movies are you excited to see? Stay tuned for more reviews as the screenings ramp up!

Fences

Denzel Washington directs as well as stars in this movie version of August Wilson’s Pulitzer-winning play about a black man in the 1950s who takes out his frustrations about life and career on his family.

No doubt the acting is strong, with Viola Davis a front runner to win the best supporting actress Oscar, but Washington’s performance is too over the top for me (they both won Tonys in 2010 for playing the same roles on Broadway).

The movie looks like a play that was filmed instead of a true adaptation, i.e. it’s static with mostly one location and lots of monologues. What works on stage is too big and presentational for a more intimate medium. It should’ve been opened up more but instead it feels, well, fenced in.

20th Century Women

Mike Mills based 2010’s Beginners on his dad and directed Christopher Plummer all the way to an Oscar for the role. With 20th Century Women, Mills tells the story of his mother, played by the radiant Annette Bening.

Dorothea is an earthy single mom raising her teenage son, Jamie, in 1979 Southern California. She asks for parenting input from the man (Billy Crudup) renovating her house, a female boarder (Greta Gerwig), and Jamie’s best childhood friend, Julie (Elle Fanning), on whom Jamie has a not-so-secret crush.

These characters form an unusual family unit, each with his/her own story that’s both funny and sad, but the film is a showcase for Bening, whose every line and emotional note rings true.

Sing

The premise: a koala bear is determined to save his crumbling theater by holding a singing competition. Contestants include pigs in sequins, a piano-playing gorilla, a shy elephant, and a rock ‘n’ roll porcupine.

You don’t have to be a kid or like animation to enjoy this movie. The story line is sparse and characters don’t get deep backstories, but the movie is infectious with its can-do spirit and never-give-up-your-dreams mentality. Kids will be delighted by the funny animals and adults will tap their feet to the soundtrack, which includes singing by stars like Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Matthew McConaughey, and Jennifer Hudson.

Hidden Figures

From L.: Monaé, Henson, Spencer

Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monaé play the 3 female black mathematicians who “helped [the US] win the space race,” according to the subtitle of Margot Lee Shetterly’s nonfiction book, from which this movie was adapted.

The racism and sexism these women experienced frustrated the heck out of me, and made me wonder how much more our country could accomplish (and how much faster we could do it) if qualified people are simply given a chance, regardless of skin color or gender.

The story is ultimately inspiring, though, considering all that Katherine Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson were able to achieve despite the obstacles in their way. The cast is all good, but Monaé as the confident, sassy Mary is the one with the breakout role. It’s incredible that this is only the singer’s second on-camera acting role (after Moonlight).

Though he has limited screen time, Glen Powell also stands out as John Glenn, one of Katherine’s champions. I hope the real Mr. Glenn got to see how well he was portrayed before he left Earth to explore the next dimension.

Which movies are you excited about this season?

Photos: Fences/Paramount, 20th Century Women/A24, Sing/Universal, Hidden Figures/Fox

I didn’t know much about the squad when I went to the screening, and had avoided all the trailers, so I was open to whatever. I just wanted to be entertained.

And I was, by some of it, the parts that didn’t induce eye rolls.

Background for Suicide Squad neophytes like me: a government official named Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), head of a secret agency, comes up with a plan to recruit some crazy-ass villains with special powers to work for the US government, because what if the next metahuman from Krypton isn’t a superman but a superterrorist? We need a super army for defense!

The chosen criminals include: Deathshot (Will Smith), an assassin who never misses a shot; Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), a former therapist who fell for one of her patients and went nuts; Diablo (Jay Hernandez), a gangbanger who can throw flames from his hands; Boomerang (Jai Courtney), an Aussie who can throw his country’s signature weapon with deadly precision; and Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a guy with a serious skin problem who looks like a cross between The Thing and Godzilla.

There’s also Katana (Karen Fukuhara), a badass chick with a sword that traps souls, but she’s a bodyguard and not a criminal. Neither is Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), a very old witch who can teleport. The convicts must obey Waller’s orders or else get blown up by a bomb implanted in them. You know, employee incentives.

At times too many characters crowd the screen and the action gets too busy and the effects look like generic CGI. Most of the actors don’t have a chance to shine. Scott Eastwood practically does background work as a soldier.

The brightest spot is Robbie portraying the unhinged Quinn with glee. The actress, who seems to be in 53 movies this year, energizes every scene she’s in, but also gives a glimpse of the vulnerability beneath Quinn’s cuckoo exterior. She has brother-sister chemistry with Smith (the two worked together in Focus), and their breezy banter is fun. It almost—but not quite—makes up for the fact she has to walk around in hot pants that cover only two-thirds of her booty. Seriously?

Davis also stands out as the suit running the squad. She doesn’t need any weapons or gimmicks. Her power lies in her steely glare and low, steady voice. Everything about her says, “Don’t f*ck with me,” and the villains, as unstable as they are, know enough to be scared of Waller.

Less successful is Jared Leto as The Joker. While I could appreciate his trying to bring something unique to the iconic character, his interpretation doesn’t stick its landing. The Joker’s laugh is annoying. Having his smile tattooed on his hand serves no purpose. This Joker is neither intimidating nor formidable, and doesn’t come close to Heath Ledger’s still-resonant incarnation.

Delevingne is too lightweight an actress to play the powerful witch. She has no chemistry with Joel Kinnaman, who plays her love interest, Rick Flag, the soldier and field leader of the squad. Hernandez makes an impression, but it’s because his character is the lone holdout—Diablo really, really doesn’t want to use his firestarting powers or engage in violence anymore.

Director/writer David Ayer’s vision of the DC Universe is more palatable than Zack Snyder’s, and I applaud Suicide Squad for having a diverse cast, but in the end, it’s a slick, expensive, loud summer movie based on comic-book characters. Take that as you will.

Photo: Warner Bros.

Wow, I was bored throughout this show, despite the fact it’s produced by my union and I got to vote for the awards. I can’t even do a best & worst list because the show was, ah, listless and predictable. (Except for when Tina Fey took Steve Buscemi’s wine glass from him and chugged it.) It got to the point where I was happy people didn’t show up to accept their awards because then the show could move closer to its conclusion.

I did wake up a little when Jean Dujardin won best actor for The Artist because, while I adore George Clooney, I liked Dujardin’s performance more. After he won, I crossed my fingers for Michelle Williams to pull an upset, too, for her transformative work in My Week with Marilyn, but I’m good with Viola Davis’s win for The Help.

I voted for Artist for best movie ensemble (wonder if Uggie would’ve gotten an Actor?) but Help‘s win is fine. I did wish, though, that Cicely Tyson had been allowed to make the acceptance speech since 1) she’s a legend, 2) Davis already had her moment when she won her individual award, and 3) Davis herself said Tyson was the reason she wanted to be an actor when she was eight years old.

Anyway, the rest of the winners are:

Supporting actress in a motion picture: Octavia Spencer for The Help

Supporting actor in a motion picture: Christopher Plummer for Beginners

TV drama ensemble: Boardwalk Empire

TV comedy ensemble: Modern Family

Actress in TV drama series: Jessica Lange for American Horror Story

Actor in TV drama series: Steve Buscemi in Boardwalk Empire

Actress in TV comedy series: Betty White for Hot in Cleveland

Actor in TV comedy series: Alec Baldwin for 30 Rock (he’s hilarious but pleeeease give it to someone else next year! Six is enough for this role!)

Actress in a TV movie or miniseries: Kate Winslet for Mildred Pierce

Actor in a TV movie or miniseries: Paul Giamatti for Too Big to Fail

Movie stunt ensemble: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

TV stunt ensemble: Game of Thrones

Even the fashion was ho-hum, not many eye poppers or obvious train wrecks. Some highlights:

1. Michelle Williams. I love that she wore a bright color, and the Valentino is very pretty, but the shoes look a little mall-ish.

2. Viola Davis. Fantastic gown; not sure about the hair, though. Perhaps pulled back and sleek would have been better for a whole goddess-like look.

3. Sofia Vergara. This color is smashing on her, but she still stayed safe in the same body-hugging silhouette she usually wears.

4. Jessica Chastain. The vibrant blue is much better than the white she wore to the Globes, and it’s striking against her red hair, but overall the dress is pretty dull.

5. Shailene Woodley. This dress didn’t make sense to me at all. Maybe she was going for a Hawaiian motif to represent The Descendants?

6. Lea Michele. This made me think of Dave Matthews’s “Crash into Me” lyrics: If she hikes up her skirt a little more, she’d show her world to everyone.

7. Jennifer Carpenter. This is one of my favorites. It might be shorter and more casual, but the beading and details are beautiful, and the dress looks perfect for a sunny, almost 80-degrees day.

8. Emma Stone. She’s so adorable, she can wear whatever she wants.

9. Tilda Swinton. You know you’re in for a slow night when even her gown looks drab.

10. Angelina Jolie. The draping is very sensual, and the metallic gives it a touch of rock ‘n’ roll, but it’s black. Zzzzzzzzzz.

11. Naya Rivera. I’m tired of looking at her breasts at every award show. If it’s not front cleavage, it’s side boobs. We get that you’re hot, now try something classy next time.

12. Emily Blunt. This is a difficult color to wear, but she looks stunning in it. The fit of the gown is divine.

13. Meryl Streep. Mr. PCN said he kept expecting her to pull out a lightsaber from her Jedi-looking outfit.

14. Rose Byrne. She said she was inspired by Michelle Pfeiffer’s Scarface look. Works for me.

15. Regina King. We end with my favorite of the evening. It makes me think of spring.

Which were your favorites?

Spencer as Minny (L.) and Davis as Aibileen

In case you’re a Help neophyte like me, the story takes place in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi, and follows the travails of black women working as maids for rich white families. The central figures are stalwart Aibileen (Viola Davis) and sassy Minny (Octavia Spencer). Their lives change when Skeeter (Emma Stone), raised by a maid and newly graduated from college with dreams of being a writer, asks to interview them and tell their stories in a book. Since it was illegal at the time to read or write anything that supported racial equality, the maids resist the idea. That is, until events push them into a corner and they can hold their tongue no more.

While the whole cast is superb, there are a few standouts. Davis anchors the movie with her portrayal of a woman much more dignified than her position in life, carrying a world of wisdom and pain in her eyes. Aibileen’s body may be tired but Davis makes it clear her spirit is still strong. Spencer has a breakout role in Minny, almost stealing every scene she’s in with her spunk and comic timing. Perhaps this isn’t surprising since she says the character is “very, very, very loosely based” on her. (See notes from the Q & A below.)

Chastain as Celia

Bryce Dallas Howard plays über mean girl Hilly convincingly because she commits to the character’s ignorance and sense of entitlement. It’s a tricky part she pulls off well. Cicely Tyson has only a couple scenes as Constantine, the maid who raised Skeeter, but she has enough time to make your throat clench up. And Jessica Chastain’s performance as Minny’s employer, Celia, is such a mesmerizing combination of vulnerability, compassion and sex appeal, it explains the actress’s hot streak of prestige films this year (she’s already been seen in The Tree of Life and has about five more projects in the can, including the next Terrence Malick.)

Screenwriter/director Tate Taylor, a friend of Stockett’s from before she wrote the novel, guides the movie with a sure hand. He allows the actors to shine and doesn’t exploit the maids’ suffering. We never see Leroy, Minny’s abusive husband, but we briefly hear the sounds of his violence and can fill in the rest. There are a couple scenes, both involving Allison Janney’s Charlotte, that felt a little synthetic emotionally, but overall Taylor has crafted a truly moving film.

Nerd verdict: Get yourself some Help

After the screening, Davis, Stone, Howard, Janney, Spencer and Chastain (plus a surprise guest) participated in a lively and, at times, poignant Q & A moderated by film critic Pete Hammond. Davis and Spencer were introduced to standing ovations from the audience.

Some highlights of the discussion:

• Davis, who’s from South Carolina, said, “I had a lot of trepidation as a black actress playing a maid.” But she wanted to get involved because “you don’t get many good roles as an actress of color” and it was either “go on a journey” with Aibileen or “have four scenes as a facilitator” in another project. She also didn’t want to be in the audience watching The Help and thinking, “Damn, I want to be in that!”
• About Aibileen, Davis said, “She had no choice. I don’t think she wanted to change the world…she’s not that brave. But she found a purpose as they went along.” When Hammond asked the actress where she thought her character went beyond the story in the novel, Davis said she imagined that Aibileen became a freedom fighter like Fannie Lou Hamer. Spencer interjected, “She opened a restaurant with Minny.”
• In talking about her experience on this movie, Stone said, “It’s incomparable to anything I’d ever been part of before…My mom was a huge fan of the book. Oh boy, she loved the book.” Hammond asked, “So you had no choice—you had to do it?” “I had no choice at all,” Stone replied. “I don’t know if it was the public school [system] in Arizona but my knowledge of the civil rights era was Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. That’s it. The greatest gift was learning about everything and the bonding and friendships between [us]. Except Bryce. She was alienated,” she joked.
• As Howard started talking about her audition for Taylor, Hammond pointed out that the director was in the audience and had him stand up. Then, startlingly, Hammond said that Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, was also in the theater. She stood and waved to a crowd already on its feet to give her a standing ovation. It was an incredibly powerful moment that gave me goosebumps. Her thought on the movie, which touched upon the assassination of her first husband? “I loved it,” she said.
• 

  Howard as Hilly

  Back to Howard, who said she hadn’t read the book when she tried out for the movie. “I was wildly enthusiastic [after I got the part] but then I had a panic attack. I had a Cruella De Vil version in my head but didn’t understand [Hilly’s] psychology at all. I totally judged her.” Eventually, she built a backstory for Hilly, about how people fed her false information that she believed. “She really thought she was doing the right thing. She was ignorant.”

• Janney said she related to Charlotte “because she was afraid of change and sometimes I’m afraid of change…I loved the journey I got to go on, giving Skeeter back her mother.” She said the production had “the best dialect coach. The people down in Greenwood [Mississippi, where part of the movie was shot,] let us come into their homes and just listen to them.”
• Spencer said that Minny is “very, very, very loosely based on certain aspects of my personality. I met Tate sixteen years ago when we were doing A Time to Kill. I was 100 pounds heavier, we were in New Orleans, and Tate, for whatever reason, wanted to take a walking tour.” It was hot, the two were bickering, and “that is when I met Kathryn. Aibileen was regal so Minny had to be short, fat and on fire.” Hammond asked if she went after the role. “The studio was like, ‘[Should we go with] Jennifer Hudson, or this person you don’t know?'” At this point, Spencer put on a fierce stare, as if she was giving a studio exec the evil eye. “It’s the person you don’t know.”
• Spencer added, “We forgot to say thank you to the Myrlies and Martin Luther Kings. This was a way to say thank you.”
• Chastain said, “I really, really fought for [Celia]. I auditioned and read with Octavia. I knew our combination wouldn’t be the same as any other combination…I became obsessed. I had to play this role.” She went on to praise Taylor’s vision and how he became a cheerleader for her. “Somehow he could see me gaining weight, the boobs, the voice,” said the actress, who, with her petite frame and strawberry blond hair, looked drastically different from the busty platinum bombshell she played.
• Chastain also told a story about meeting a woman at a party shortly before production began, when she hadn’t quite found her character’s voice yet. The woman sat down next to Chastain and “started talking to me in this voice that sounded like Celia. Then she said, ‘I’m Kitty’s [Stockett’s] mom.’ Octavia and I took her to lunch and I recorded her. She was an extra in the movie” and at one point stood next to Chastain and announced, “I inspired this figure.”
• The cast said they had two weeks of rehearsal, more than they’re usually afforded on movie productions. “Tate really fought for it,” Howard said. “We rehearsed in the houses we were shooting in. They became our houses.”
• 

  Tyson with Lila Rogers as young Skeeter

  Davis said Cicely Tyson’s legendary performance in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman was what made her pursue acting. She “grew up in abject poverty” and was incredibly inspired when she saw “an expert craftsman…who looked like me.” In watching The Help, “To look up on the screen…” Her voice broke off, choked with emotion. “It’s like my life had come full circle,” Davis finally said.

Since Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir sold a bazillion copies worldwide, I’ll assume you’ve either read or have heard of it. If not, here’s a quick rundown: Gilbert, a thirtysomething writer, realizes she’s unhappy in her marriage, gets divorced and decides to devote a year to finding herself by traveling first to Italy (eating without counting calories), then India (praying and meditating) and Bali (learning to love again). She tells stories about the people she met along the way, her struggles to feel connected to something, and her eventual enlightenment.

The book is funnier than the movie because the former has a lot more of Gilbert’s voice and she often made fun of herself. Director/co-writer (with Jennifer Salt) Ryan Murphy’s adaptation contains some voiceover narration but has a more melancholy feel while retaining Gilbert’s warmth and spirit. The locations are lushly captured by Robert Richardson and the score by Dario Marianelli is evocative of each country Gilbert visits.

Roberts turns in a deeply affecting portrayal of a woman in transition. Her face is luminous and transparent, with every emotion clearly visible even when she tries to suppress them. In a scene when Felipe (Javier Bardem), the man she meets in Bali, confronts her about her feelings for him, Roberts’s eyes reveal pure terror at the realization she might be falling for him, something she wasn’t prepared for. She stands there speechless for a moment, tamping down the panic, but it’s all there and I felt it in my chest. This performance is less flashy but more full-bodied than the one of Erin Brockovich (it seems she does her best work playing real women) and deserves another Oscar nomination.

Bardem, though way too young to play Felipe, has the necessary charisma to break Gilbert out of her self-imposed celibacy. He’s not conventionally handsome, with bulging eyes that can be unsettling as we saw in No Country for Old Men, but he can also make those eyes seductive as he does here. His Felipe is a sweet romantic who doesn’t come on too strong, his breezy banter not quite covering the emotional scars from his own divorce.

Other supporting roles are filled by rock-solid actors like James Franco as Gilbert’s young boyfriend David, Richard Jenkins as Richard from Texas (who died earlier this year; he answered a few questions for me last year about the movie and later asked if I knew how he could get a cameo), Viola Davis as Gilbert’s friend Delia, and Hadi Subiyanto, a real find as the Balinese medicine man Ketut. Billy Crudup moved me as Gilbert’s ex-husband, Stephen, a decent man who loves her and doesn’t understand why she no longer reciprocates. Some of the complaints I heard about the book were about how Gilbert seems selfish for giving up a husband for no obvious reasons but that’s one of the things I appreciated about her story. Gilbert refused to paint him as a jerk and Crudup follows her lead. Sometimes two people just aren’t compatible. Leaving a monster is an easy decision; it’s much scarier to walk away from a good person wondering if you did the right thing.

The movie runs about 2:15 but the length is justified, giving Gilbert a chance to absorb each country she visits and allowing us to do the same. I enjoyed the vicarious journey and never once looked at my watch, which means I must’ve learned something from Gilbert: how to stay present.

Nerd verdict: Go See Love

Photos © Columbia Pictures

Kudos to Oprah for freely admitting that even she can be rejected and to Shanley for being brave enough to say no to the Queen of all Media!

Scripts have been emailed so please check your inbox (or spam box) if you haven’t already. Thanks to all who played (ScriptPimp and ART Ent, your guesses of Sean Young and P. Diddy were funny!) and stay tuned for more giveaways!

**********************************

The moderator introduced Shanley first, then Davis, Adams, Hoffman and Streep, who received a standing ovation. After everyone was seated, the moderator directed his first question to Shanley. “Why did you write the play?”

Shanley said, “A few years ago, I noticed an atmosphere of uncertainty in this country. Doubt was being viewed as a weakness but I saw it as a great hallmark of strength.” He talked about how back in the ’60s, when he went to parochial school, he was taught certain rules about how things were even though he could feel that cultural shifts were coming. “Now, I’m in a time of great change; tectonic plates are moving again.”

The moderator asked the panelists in general, “What’s the most important theme for you [in this movie]?

Streep answered, “I’d seen the play and Cherry Jones do it. I was thunderstruck at her performance and wanted to steal it from her.” Huge audience laughter. “Just kidding.”

Shanley picked up the thread. “The theme that interested me was certainty, that tension that exists between people who felt things falling apart and trying to hold it together and people who wanted to let things fall where they fall.”

The moderator asked Streep, “Are you her? Are you that character?”

“Yes, I am, ” Streep deadpanned to big laughter. Then she told a story about being on location in Australia where everything is poisonous. Her children had a tendency to run everywhere, much to her chagrin (there were snakes around, among other things), while she noticed the Aborigine children never moved far from their mothers. “This is because the Aborigines have an uncle or family friend scare the shit out of the children, like, ‘Ahhhhhhh!’ [she screams] and they never leave their mothers’ side. Mother Superior is like that. It works.”

The moderator asked Streep and Hoffman about working together. Streep said, “I thought he didn’t like me the whole time.” (The person sitting next to me muttered under her breath, “Is she on crack? Why wouldn’t he?”)

“I adored working with her, just playing with her when we weren’t acting,” Hoffman said. “Acting with her is enjoyable and it’s not always enjoyable. The really good ones make it enjoyable.”

“What was your rehearsal process and prep time?” the moderator asked.

“Two weeks,” Shanley said.

“Three…?” Hoffman ventured.

“It seemed like two,” Shanley said.

“We did the room with the taped-off furniture,” Streep said.

Adams jumped in. “We had musical auditions next door. We had ‘Suddenly Seymour’ coming through the walls.” She continued, “The hard part [for me] was embracing a character who was so submissive and unsure of herself but having the confidence as an actor to be open to the challenges.” She then talked about the bonnet she wears in the movie as part of the nun’s habit. “It was fantastic; it was like having blinders on, literally [she cupped her hands on either side of her face to demonstrate having no peripheral vision]. I’d never been more focused in my life. I probably need it in my life!”

The moderator asked Shanley about the real Sister James, to whom he dedicated the movie.

“Sister James was my first-grade schoolteacher. When I wrote [the play], it was in full confidence that she was dead,” Shanley said, to huge laughter. On the play’s opening night, however, “to my horror, I found out she was coming. I hadn’t seen her in 48 years, since when I was 6. She was 70 [when I saw her again]. Together, we looked through this peculiar lens into the past. She loved the play, then brought many more nuns because nuns hang out with nuns. I wanted to dedicate the film to someone who had dedicated her life to service and never sought the limelight.”

“What was it like to have her on set?” the moderator asked.

“She said over and over again, ‘He was such a sweet boy,’ ” Streep answered.

The moderator asked Hoffman if he studied with a priest. Hoffman said he did do research with a priest with whom he had previously worked on a play called The Last Days of Judas Iscariot.

The moderator then addressed Davis. “You heard the reaction you got when I introduced you.” (She had received very hearty applause.)

Tongue firmly in cheek, Davis said, “It wasn’t the same as Meryl got.”

“You only had one scene really but made such an impact,” the moderator said.

“Being private in public was the most difficult thing for me. The most difficult thing is her candidness. I had to feel free enough to tell this woman everything even though she’s yelling at a kid when I first got there,” Davis said.

She then told a story about how she was born in South Carolina on a plantation and her family was from the deep South, where people grew up in the church, with “women with their big titties hanging out, singing songs.” Then her family moved to Rhode Island, where it was mostly Catholic. She said she wanted so badly to be part of the Catholic church but was thrown out for not being “one of them.”

Davis turned to the other cast members and said, “I don’t want to make you all feel uncomfortable but I felt like an outsider [on set] so it really informed my performance of the character.”

The moderator asked Shanley why he didn’t use the actors from the play.

“I wanted to see what the most talented cast I could dream up would do,” Shanley said.

At this point, the Q & A was opened up to the audience. Someone asked the stars in general, “What is your greatest challenge?”

Streep said, “I’m always afraid, because people always expect a germ of wisdom [from me]. I go into the process like everyone else—I’m too old, too fat, too overexposed, everyone has seen everything…we’re actors here, we’re all insecure, right? But our strength is our vulnerability. If you don’t feel inadequate, something’s…” she trails off. Then, “Fortunately, I have a family who makes me feel that way a lot.” Huge laughter from the audience. “I’m not kidding.”

The moderator asked, “Do you still have fears?”

“I’m scared right now,” Hoffman deadpanned. “My hand shakes, I forget to breathe for thirty seconds. It happened on this film.” He told a story about filming a scene in Doubt when he’s drinking tea. The sound person requested something be put on the saucer to settle it because it was rattling so much due to Hoffman’s shaking hands. But Hoffman protested. “I said, ‘Don’t put anything on that saucer. I have to attack the fear.’ “

Adams said, “I didn’t start working this much until my 30s. I’m blessed to do it but it’s terrifying every day. My goal is to be flawless someday,” she said.

An audience member asked, “What do you wish you knew then that you know now?”

“I wish I knew more about girls,” Hoffman said immediately.

“That being completely terrified is an occupational hazard,” Davis replied. “I went to do looping [re-recording dialogue that wasn’t perfectly recorded on set] and saw all that snot on my face and thought, ‘Meryl saw all that and didn’t tell me to use a Kleenex?’ ” The audience laughed. Davis continued, “I wish I had confidence and courage. You have to have a certain amount of it in your choices, even if you take the ball and run in the completely wrong direction.”

Adams said, “I wish I knew I’d work so much so I wouldn’t panic and spend my 20s in a tailspin. I wish I knew I looked better with red hair than as a blonde. It would’ve saved me a lot of highlights.” The audience laughed.

Another audience member asked, “How does it feel to know everything you do gets dissected on the blogosphere? Do you pay attention to it?”

Everyone shook their head. Then Streep said, “I was reading a lot of political blogs up until the the election but I don’t know how to get to those [other] blogs. Dateline Hollywood’s the only one I know.”

“My dad informs me of everything ever written about me,” Adams said.

Streep then said she wanted to go back and address the what-I-wish-I-knew-then question. “I wish I hadn’t worried about my weight so much all through my twenties. I think women worry so much about their weight while men just sit down.”

Hoffman protested. “I was one of those little kids in school who’d be sitting in the bleachers, looking at his thighs and touching them and thinking, ‘You’ve got fat thighs.’ I’ve been worrying about my tummy since I was 10.”

Streep continued, “I just think for young actresses, a lot of the time, they think they can’t get parts” if they don’t weigh within a certain range.

Next question from an audience member. “Do you still study?”

Streep answered, “No, I don’t study anymore except in working. I learned from everyone on this stage except you [she looked at the moderator]. I don’t write down notes or anything in my scripts, which makes them worthless on eBay. I just dream and think about it.”

The next audience member mentioned a scene in which Streep used a long pole to change a light bulb overhead, then walked with the pole vertically at her side to answer a knock at the door. The audience member thought it made Mother Aloysius “look like Death,” with her black cloak and pole, and wondered if that was Streep’s or Shanley’s idea.

“My choice,” Streep said immediately, to much laughter. “No, the director put a stick in my hand, but I was aware in the rehearsal that I looked like an old witch.”

An audience member wanted Shanley to discuss what nature represented in the film, with all the winds blowing in many scenes.

“This is the hardest script I ever wrote and I’ve written a few,” Shanley said. “I wanted to bring in the children, the parishioners, show the convent vs. the directory. I wanted to feed something to dramatize the forces of change this woman couldn’t keep at bay. Wind seemed like the obvious thing to exploit, the light bulb going out…she’s at war with the physical world.”

Another audience member directed her question to Adams. “How did you prepare?”

“It was very much on the page. I’d never rehearsed anything like this. Something spoke to me about her, her devotion to her vows and calling. In meeting Sister Peggy [aka Sister James, Shanley’s former teacher], she’s plucky, there’s an impishness and I stole that.” The audience laughed. Adams continued, “It was a lot of science. I listened more than I talked…”

“You were incredibly well-prepared,” Shanley said.

An audience member asked about the financial challenges Shanley encountered in getting the movie made.

“One day we spent some big bucks. People showed up the next day when we were shooting in the hallway, which was complicated, there was lots going on. The money people said, ‘You better get it in one shot.’ I got it in one take. But then Phil said, ‘I’m feeling a little rushed.'” The audience laughed. Shanley then concluded by saying the money people don’t show up when you spend the money, they show up the next day and try to get you to speed things up.

It was the final question of the evening, the moderator wrapped things up and the stars filed out to a final round of applause.

The first time we see her character, Sister Aloysius, in the movie, we only see the back of her head but she’s already intimidating. Garbed in the traditional black nun’s habit as she walks up the aisle of a church during mass, she’s only seen from the waist down as she shushes one kid and thwacks another upside the head for talking. It’s a great introduction to her character, someone who terrifies people even when she can’t be seen.

Set in 1964, Doubt is based on John Patrick Shanley’s play of the same name (Shanley also directed this movie) which starred Cherry Jones in a Tony-winning Broadway turn. Sister Aloysius leads a solo crusade against Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), whom she believes has taken an unnatural interest in the sole black student at the Catholic school they run. Caught in the middle is the young nun Sister James (Amy Adams), who’s convinced Father Flynn is innocent but also admires Sister Aloysius’s conviction.

The cast does exceptional work. The trick in Streep’s performance is she avoids making Sister Aloysius an all-out, one-dimensional villain (she’s actually very funny at times). She’s maddening in her ad hominem attack on Father Flynn, possessing no evidence other than that he has long fingernails and likes three lumps of sugar in his tea; ergo, he must be evil. But watching Streep work, I didn’t hate Sister Aloysius. I felt she was a woman desperately hanging on to the familiar tenets of her faith so she can avoid facing the winds of change (literally—strong winds blow a lot in this movie but more on that in the Q & A). I didn’t condone her actions but felt sorry for her because change will come no matter what she does.

Adams also turns in a strong performance as the young Sister James. She has got to have the most innocent face on any actress in Hollywood over 15. Her untainted quality shines right through that dark habit she wears. Her work might be subtle but it’s complex; it’s not easy to play such a guileless adult without becoming annoying. Viola Davis, as the black student’s mother, has only about two scenes in the whole film but makes a searing impact as a woman faced with impossible choices.

Hoffman does his usual exemplary work, keeping us guessing as to the priest’s guilt. In one scene, though, he might’ve forgotten he was in a movie and thought he was doing the play instead. The scene is a confrontation in Sister Aloysius’s office and Hoffman shouted quite a bit. It would’ve been fine if I were watching him from the back row of a big theater but on film, it was the only time I thought Hoffman was over the top.

Shanley with Streep on set

It’s not hard to mistake this movie for a play, though, because it comes across very much like one. There are long scenes of just two people talking in interior settings with no cutaways. The acting and writing are compelling enough to keep my interest but I imagine the play wasn’t opened up very much during the adaptation process. Most of the actors have only one costume in the movie, the visuals and score are subdued. The minimalism might have been intended to keep the focus on the ideas Shanley presents, themes which are particularly timely in this election year when some people seem to embrace change while others have nothing but doubt.

Rating: Good

The cast and Shanley did a really entertaining Q & A after the screening I attended. Check back this weekend for my report on that, in which they discussed the film, working with each other and their insecurities as filmmakers.

Also coming up this weekend—my review of Australia and Q & A with Hugh Jackman and Baz Luhrmann.