Doubt

I was supposed to watch this movie, The curious case of Benjamin Button and hey, I redeemed a pair of tickets for today with my M1 points. So I was happily clicking away at my computer, wondering how long the show would be and gosh, it was said to last 166 minutes. I had read the short story, just 14 chapters and had expected it to last at a maximum 2 hours. 

So you would have imagined my relief when Queen sms-ed and informed us of Lynn's delay in departure. Otherwise, I'd have missed seeing her off from the airport and God knows when we're going to meet her again.

Headed off to the Cathay Cineplex, and to cut the long story short, it was supposed to be screened at the one at Dhoby Ghaut. And we were told like 15min into the show. Really glad that Shu was easy-going and we ended up catching 「Doubt」.

And it was a powerful movie. A short 90 minutes but it was just fantastic. Spoiler alert, if you are intending to catch the movie, please do NOT read on.

There were 3 characters: The Priest Father Flynn, The Principal Sister Aloysius, The young and kind teacher Sister James.

Sister Aloysius was sure that Father Flynn had sinned by the account of Sister James and sought to confront the priest. The Principal is a cold and harsh lady who was portrayed as someone without sympathy but would do everything to uphold her perceived virtues and it is more significant as the setting was a Parish where white is white and black is black. The Priest was portrayed as a charismatic character - both charismatic in person and charismatic in his style of Christian leadership. The setting also helped as Christians are to be compassionate and kind (somewhat in contrary to the clear-cut black and white).

Sister James was young and aspired to be a good teacher but made observation that Father Flynn had made an infringement and reported to The Principal. They confronted The Priest who managed to convince Sister James that the cover up was an innocent one to prevent embarrassment to a student. The Principal wasn't convinced and sought to bring down Father Flynn, her superior.

The movie just showed that even without proper evidence, a person is impossible to convince if he/she chooses not to. Sister Aloysius' (The Principal) best accusation was 'I know', there was no proof, and no one was convinced by her. During one of the confrontation between just Father Flynn and Sister Aloysius, The Priest asked if Sister Aloysius had done anything wrong before as a person. She was affirmative but backed up by stating that she had made her confession. To which, Father Flynn replied that he was the same as her and insisted that he had done nothing wrong.

The ending was just fascinating. Father Flynn left The Parish but was given a promotion instead because no one was convinced. Sister James was devastated that she had done a wrong deed. But the movie ended with a strong implication, but not definite that Father Flynn was guilty. However the stronger message was that hard as Sister Aloysius was, she had her doubt.

After the movie, we saw Deanne on the way down and had dinner together, with Bernard, a big big 先輩 in my office. Guess I'll have to find another day to watch Benjamin Button - the trailer seemed rather good.