max alberts

The ensemble work is virtually miraculous. Meryl Streep offers a performance of immense vulnerability, a quality I've not noted in her past movie work. Viola Davis anchors the film with such talent and power that her one scene burns itself into memory. The late, brilliant Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the possible pedophile, possible sacrificial lamb, and Amy Adams, a young sister desperate to protect her school children, confront each other in a kind of archetypal war for the innocent souls of youth. A superb film in every way.