After premiering at the high-profile fall film festivals that
signal the official start of Oscar movie season, “Spotlight” instantly became
one of the more acclaimed films of the year thus far (and if you believe the
Oscar prognosticators, it’s the current front-runner to take home the Best
Picture prize come February), and it’s not hard to see why. Detailing the story
behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the Catholic Church sex
abuse scandal conducted by a small team of journalists at The Boston Globe, the
film crackles with intelligence, boasting pitch-perfect writing, directing, and
performances.
The arrival
of a new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber, in a
superbly understated performance), to the offices of The Boston Globe in early
2001 signifies a major shakeup to the paper. Jewish and an out-of-towner, Baron
comes to the Globe by way of The Miami Herald, and if that wasn’t enough to
make his new employees wary, there are rumblings that his tenure at the Herald
was distinguished by major cuts to that paper’s staff. But Baron’s outsider
identity allows him the ability to take a hard look at the paper’s practices.
A column
about a local priest accused of molestation leads Baron to suggest there might
be something more to the story, assigning Spotlight — the paper’s four-person
department specializing in long-term investigative reporting — to dig a little
deeper. Overseen by managing editor Ben Bradlee Jr.
(John Slattery), the Spotlight team is made up of editor Walter “Robby”
Robinson (Michael Keaton), Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), and Matt Carroll
(Brian d’Arcy James). What the group uncovers is a widespread and systemic
issue that touches all corners of the world. They find an endless sea of
victims, whose harrowing stories demonstrate not just physical abuse, but
psychological and spiritual as well
As the scope
of the story grows ever larger — “if it takes a village to raise a child, it
takes a village to abuse one” — it becomes increasingly clear that the Boston
archdiocese played a major role in covering up the abuse cases, shuffling
accused priests off to a few months of therapy, then to new parishes where the
cycle was often repeated, all the while pressuring the victim’s family to
settle and keep their mouths shut. The film nails its specific sense of place,
showing how Boston can be an insular and proud city. Being the most powerful
institution in the city, the Catholic Church is entrenched in the very identity
of its citizens, making them inclined to look the other way when decency says
they should do the opposite.
“Spotlight”
does little to make the real work of journalism seem sexy, concerning itself
with the work involved — the grunt work and endless research — but it makes
that work absolutely riveting to watch. We’re engrossed in the story, and then
when the emotion hits, it’s absolutely devastating.
But as
thrilling as the film can be, it’s ultimately a mournful look at the last gasps
of a brand of real investigative journalism that doesn’t exist much anymore.
Set in the early 2000’s, when the Internet really began to take hold and eat
into print media’s readership, the film exists in a time when newspapers had
the resources to allow stories to be in the works for months and reporters were
committed to doing good work with the only reward being the satisfaction of
getting important information out into the world. It’s a bitter joke when we see
that the Globe’s staff park their cars each morning in the shadow of a massive
billboard advertising AOL.
In many ways
“Spotlight” covers similar terrain as “Truth,” but is a stronger film in nearly
every respect. It’s confident enough in its
storytelling to not beat us over the head with why these particular events are
so important, and it never turns its message into a lecture. It’s the rare
newsroom movie that earns its comparisons to Alan J. Pakula’s
1976 classic, “All the President’s Men.”
A true ensemble,
each member of the cast gets their moment to shine and all rise to the
occasion. Though we don’t learn much about the personal lives of its characters
outside of their job, we get a sense of who they are by how they perform their
job, and the characters never devolve into types. McCarthy, working from a
script co-written by Josh Singer, redeems himself after the abysmal Adam
Sandler vehicle, “The Cobbler.” McCarthy’s unflashy direction doesn’t draw
attention to itself, but suits the material perfectly. In his hands, the film
stays admirably restrained while delving into the type of lurid subject matter
that could easily have become sensationalized and exploitative.
This article appears in Nov 18-24, 2015.
