Here's a spiritual exercise for you. You all know the actress Meryl Steep. You know her from her many roles, and the skill she has exhibited in them. Most of those roles have been sympathetic, people you can empathize with and love.
Now imagine her as horror incarnate, the incarnation of all the qualities you most detest in a spiritual context. That horror is the lynchpin of John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt." Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" was a lightweight by comparison. You have met her before. See the movie, and you'll figure out where. It may be a different "where" for each of you, or it may be the same "where." But if you've paid your dues in any spiritual organization, you've met her. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams are both out- standing in this film, but it's Meryl Streep's Sister Beauvier you will remember. And in the end, in spite of her horrific, shriveled, black heart, she'll help you understand what drives such a person, and allow you to feel compassion even for her. And if that ain't the essence of a spiritual film, I don't know what is.
