John Patrick Shanley's immensely successful 2004 play Doubt makes for an equally well-crafted film. Starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams and directed by Shanley himself, the movie adaptation lives up to the promise of its cast and delivers an engrossing drama about guilt, certainty and justice in an increasingly uncertain situation. Set in 1964 at St. Nicholas, a Catholic school in the Bronx, the film follows iron-willed principal Sister Aloysius (Streep), who governs by fear and with a strict moral code. A young and na've teacher, Sister James (Adams), comes to her with suspicions about the behavior of school priest Father Flynn (Hoffman) toward the school's first and only black student, Donald Miller (Joseph Foster). Sister Aloysius then begins a campaign to discredit Father Flynn. Armed with no concrete evidence, she has only her absolute certitude and a sharp instinct. However, she's burdened by her inflexible sense of righteousness and her own icy demeanor, especially when pitted against the charismatic Father Flynn.

Father Flynn represents a new sort of Catholic church, one ruled not by a distant, unfeeling order, but by what he terms compassion, which means embracing the members of his parish as members of a family. In a changing world-a year after the JFK assassination, a time of racial progress hindered by prejudice (for Donald Miller is harassed constantly)-Father Flynn feels Sister Aloysius' old-fashioned ideology is useless. He's the kind of man who plays basketball with his students and hosts advice sessions for the boys under his care. He knows that Donald has no friends among his peers and thus reaches out to the boy, but the question is whether this personal gesture is fueled by genuine compassion or a more sinister self-interest. Sister Aloysius, determined to prove the latter and remove him from the school, obsessively pursues her goal, and he fights back with indignant denial.

Allegations of sexual abuse by priests are nothing new, and the film is in danger of succumbing to cliché because of its subject matter; however, Shanley's vision is considerably more complex. Father Flynn is clearly not a monster and Sister Aloysius is certainly not a crusading heroine. Her extreme nature would be parody in the hands of a lesser actor, but Streep manages to portray her with startling humanity without an iota less of fierce determination. Hoffman plays Father Flynn as an irreproachably good man in whom the audience can comprehend an increasing ambiguity. This means that Streep and Hoffman are able to carry scenes where the crackling dialogue, often verbatim from the play, makes each new moment an opportunity for the tension to be stretched to its utmost.

Adams, unfortunately, gets overshadowed by the strong character of her co-stars, but not because she lacks skill in her role. Sister James, although likeable and sunny, is perhaps a bit too innocent in contrast to Sister Aloysius. She simply doesn't hold up against the two more complex leads. However, Streep is wonderfully upstaged in the most climactic scene of the film, when Sister Aloysius is speaking with Donald's mother, Mrs. Miller (Viola Davis). Davis overshadows Streep and holds her own admirably as the determined, yet wary parent. As the two women discuss Father Flynn and Donald, the most nuanced moments of the film emerge from their conversation.

Shanley's vision is less ambiguous in the film than in the play, and sometimes his message can be a bit heavy-handed. The dramatic weather (constant clouds and thunder) and music, with a score composed by Howard Shore, who also did Lord of the Rings, do no favors for the movie, nor do the occasional bizarrely severe camera angles.

The film enhances the school's atmosphere with vivid but not overpowering minor characters. But, the cinematography is still sparse and adds little meaning to the film. However, the strong script and superb performances produce a definitively impressive film experience. Like the play, which has only four actors, the film is so tightly wound around the interplay among its leads that the audience barely notices that the film is mostly a series of conversations between two characters. That dialogue alone is enough to sustain dramatic tension and our enraptured attention.