The trailer for this didn't look promising - it seemed to boil down to a simplistic anti-religious confrontation between Meryl Streep, playing a sour-faced nun, and Philip Hoffman as a gay priest shouting the odds at one another after a younger nun had blown the whistle on his relationship with a young black student. However, it was my partner's turn to choose and fortunately 'Confessions of a Shopaholic' was on at an inconveient time.

In fact,'Doubt' was a surpringly subtle and complex presentation of issues surrounding compassion and faith and gay issues than the trailer promised.

Meryl Streep gave her usual effortless performance and Hoffman was good, too. I thought Amy Adams was the weak link as the junior nun who seemed so childlike it made you think they should raise the age-limit for taking vows. The boy's mother was very strong in a cameo one-scene performance.

However, it was overall a modest well-paced drama with excellent literary roots - a Pulitzer prize-winning play. Though set in WW2 days there was no attempt, as in 'Benjamin Button', to overwhelm with period detail,so the authenticity was supplied by short but compelling interior classroom scenes and a snowy courtyard. With all the moody blues and drab brown furniture it was a pleasure to look at.

Sheila