Spotlight

Director: Tom McCarthy
Screenplay: Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy
Stars: Michael Keaton (Walter “Robby” Robinson), Mark Ruffalo (Mike Rezendes), Rachel McAdams (Sacha Pfeiffer), Liev Schreiber (Marty Baron), John Slattery (Ben Bradlee Jr. ), Brian d’Arcy James (Matt Carroll), Stanley Tucci (Mitchell Garabedian), Elena Wohl (Barbara), Gene Amoroso (Steve Kurkjian), Doug Murray (Peter Canellos), Sharon McFarlane (Helen Donovan), Jamey Sheridan (Jim Sullivan), Neal Huff (Phil Saviano), Billy Crudup (Eric Macleish)
MPAA Rating: R
Year of Release: 2015
Country: U.S.
Spotlight
SpotlightTom McCarthy’s Spotlight is a compelling and absorbing account of The Boston Globe’s investigation of the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests throughout Massachusetts and the Boston Archdiocese’s shameful attempts to cover it up by moving the priests to different parishes. The work was done by the so-called “Spotlight” team, an investigative unit that operates within, but largely separate from, the rest of the newspaper. Led by Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), the veteran team consists of Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), and Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery), all of whom are defined primarily by their utter dedication to their profession. The film is, if anything, a godsend to the flagging newspaper industry, reminding us again of why good, solid journalism—the kind that asks tough questions, probes the answers it receives, and verifies its facts before printing them—is absolutely essential to not just a functional democracy, but a moral society. Like a number of other movies recently released, including Concussion and Joy, it relies heavily on the emotional currents inherent in stories about the power of individuals to stand up to monolithic entities that seem all but untouchable.

The investigation is launched in early 2001 under the encouragement of the Globe’s new editor, Marty Baron (Live Schreiber), who questions why so little has been written about the prosecution of Boston priest John Geoghan, who was accused of molesting more than 100 children. He rightly suspects that this is not just an isolated incident, but rather the tip of the iceberg, and he also rightly recognizes that the story will only have traction and effect change if it is about “the system,” rather than one or a few pedophilic priests. As an outsider (he’s not a native Bostonian, has just moved there from The Washington Post, and is a Jew in a land of Catholics and lapsed Catholics), Baron sees things that others have missed, willfully or otherwise, which provides the spark needed to set things in motion. This, of course, also makes his motives suspect, especially to those whose power and control are threatened by the revelations of the Archdiocese’s sins.

As Robby and his team start turning up information, their intensity and sense of urgency grows. This is particularly true of Mike Rezendes, who uncovers some of the most sordid details (he’s clearly the team’s most dogged researcher) and as a result becomes the most pronounced in blurring the line between the personal and the professional. One of the only moments of conflict within the team itself comes when Mike wants to run with the story as is, but Robby wants to wait until they can gather more information. As the cool-headed leader, Robby stays largely above the fray, which is a necessary antidote to the inflamed emotions all around him, although it makes him a somewhat less interesting character than the others (which is perhaps why Keaton is not getting as much awards-season love as those who felt that his not winning an Oscar for Birdman last year needs to be remedied immediately). The most compelling emotional element in the film is the internal conflict felt by Sacha, who knows that her grandmother, a devoted Catholic, will be devastated to learn not just the truth about what has been happening, but that her granddaughter was directly involved in dredging up the church’s dirty secrets. The simple, nearly wordless scene near the end where she sits at the kitchen table while her grandmother reads the story is quietly devastating.

The ugliness of the long hidden abuse is conveyed via interviews that the team conducts with a number of survivors (one is a husband and recent father who is clearly invested in maintaining his sense of masculinity in the face of his childhood abuse, while another is a gay man whose budding homosexuality clearly made him an easy target as a child). The bluntness of their childhood sexual trauma is bad enough, but it is compounded by their isolation, as they were betrayed by priests who they and their families trusted as men of God. Many of these survivors are represented by Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci), a Boston lawyer who is essential to the Spotlight team’s investigation, as is Eric Macleish (Billy Crudup), a lawyer who helped cut more than 50 deals for the church to keep the abuse hidden under sealed court documents and settlements.

McCarthy, whose most recent film was the Netflix-produced Adam Sandler comedy The Cobbler (2014), first emerged in the mid-2000s with a series of low-key, character-centered dramas, including The Station Agent (2003), The Visitor (2007), and Win Win (2011). Spotlight is something of a departure for him because, rather than being focused on characters, it is focused on the mechanics of the investigation. It is a procedural in the best sense, meaning that the process enthralls us with both detail and emotional and moral urgency. Although most people are aware of this sordid chapter in Roman Catholic history, Spotlight still has the power to raise one’s ire as we realize the expansiveness of the cover-up, the number of lives damages and destroyed, and the fundamental betrayal of trust involved in a religious institution not only protecting its abusive priests, but shuffling them around and thereby enabling further sexual violence against children. McCarthy and co-screenwriter Josh Singer, a veteran of television who wrote Bill Condon’s Julian Assange drama The Fifth Estate (2014), don’t do anything fancy, nor do they need to. Spotlight is a solid, workman-like evocation of how journalism, when done right and for the right reasons, can be a saving grace and an invaluable corrective to power run amok.

Copyright ©2015 James Kendrick

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Overall Rating: (3.5)




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