‘Doubt’ – Divine acting showcase

The writer/director of “Doubt” didn’t have to work up a sweat transferring his famed Broadway play to the big screen.

The film’s stars – Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams – do all the heavy lifting for him.

In fact, whenever John Patrick Shanley gets in the way he only gums up his own works.

“Doubt,” which first hit the stage in 2005, is the kind of theatrical event that’s all but impossible to ruin. But the studio top-loaded the cast with today’s finest actors just in case.

The unflappable Sister Aloysius (Streep) works in a Catholic school where “Frosty the Snowman” is too secular and her fellow teachers cringe whenever she enters their classrooms.

The stern Sister believes the parish’s Father Flynn (Hoffman) is having an inappropriate relationship with the new black student. The film is set in the 1960s, so any trauma involving a black child is of extra concern. But Sister Aloysius doesn’t have proof of the Father’s alleged crimes.

No matter. He’s guilty – she can just feel it.

So she begins her own investigation, luring a young, far more innocent nun (Amy Adams) into her plan.

The story challenges her leap of faith, as well as the timeliness of church policies that deny the cultural advances swirling around it.

Hoffman and Streep face off several times, with each exchange more heated, and more deliriously entertaining than the next. Streep is a fierce opponent, a woman whose deeply held beliefs, and suspicions, appear unshakeable.

Yet the actress lets us peer beneath the facade, revealing a woman whose bluster belies a frailty of faith and self-worth that’s fascinating to behold.

The few times “Doubt” stumbles is when you can feel Shanley trying to stretch the setting beyond its stage roots. And the writer/director’s reach for metaphors – a burned out light bulb hear, the crash of thunder there – distract more than illuminate.

Viola Davis, who plays the black child’s mother, is earning raves for her powerful scene with Streep. It’s not nearly as transformative as the buzz suggests, but it’s a haunting moment that spins the scandal in new and frightening directions.

“Doubt” arrives in theaters with award buzz emblazoned across every frame. The film itself does nothing to deny its date with Oscar this February.

(Photo: Meryl Streep doesn’t have to pray for another Oscar nomination. Her blistering performance in “Doubt” is the only help she’ll need. Photo Credit: Andrew Schwartz/Miramax Film Corp)