by Roger Ebert

Viola Davis, of course. She walks into "Doubt," which is a great film to begin with, and stuns us with a scene that portrays an entire reality outside the closed world of the school. She's the mother of a boy who the school principal thinks may have been abused, and in words of fire and insight, she shows how well she understands her son and the choices in his life. She pulls the ground out from under both the nun and the audience.

It's said she "steals" the scene with Streep. Not so. If she had, it would have been an acting error. She plays the scene with Streep, head-to-head. I can't find any authoritative source saying how long the sequence goes on. Some say five minutes, some 10, some 15. It may seem longer than it is, because it's the emotional pivot of the film, essentially the cause of the Streep character's doubt. John Patrick Shanley's writing is flawless.

Viola Davis is a great actor. If she is ever given a leading role in a movie, she will come to full glory, as she has on the stage. She was powerful in a supporting role in Todd Haynes' "Far from Heaven," a remake of a Douglas Sirk film, and would be perfect as the mother in a re-fashioning of Sirk's "Imitation of Life." She has a magnetism that allows her to illuminate an important scene even when she has no dialog, as in Denzel Washington's "Antwone Fisher," where she plays the hero’s' crack-addicted mother, consumed by regret and despair.

It is extraordinary that all four lead performances in "Doubt" were nominated. I suspect if Davis had not been the film's catalyst, none might have been. In a way, you want to follow her out of the film, and go home with her and into the next movie.