I mentioned briefly in the last post that John Patrick Shanley's adaptation of his own play to screenplay irritated me at points. The failure, in my mind, was to underestimate the subtlety needed to convey visual metaphors on the screen. It just felt a little amaturish at points-- I still enjoyed most of the film, I just felt that perhaps a better edit was needed to remove certain bits.
Then I noticed on the Doubt wikipedia page that Shanley has an exclusive contract that forbids anyone to change a single word of the screenplays he has written (presumably they can get him to change something if they want, but I don't think it can be cut in post-production).
I'm just observing the connection. I still am happy for Shanley that he has that sort of contract, and I still loved the movie. But I did roll my eyes at some of the gestures.
