It's 1964, in the Bronx, and Meryl Streep, the principal of a Catholic school, is determined to show us outsiders what our little Catholic friends were talking about. Meanwhile, her boss, Father Flynn, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is coming on strong to the school's only African-American student, a boy named Donald. The principal stalks the guilty priest and finally drives him out of the parish, but instead of being prosecuted, ostracized, and ruined, he is appointed to a higher position at another church. So you can't say the film is sensational or implausible.
In the last scene, the principal, who is strongly opposed to Frosty the Snowman and ballpoint pens, tearfully allows that she too has "doubt." Let us hope it is about her vocation.
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