SPOTLIGHT

Spotlight

Grade: A-

**Currently In Theatres**

Starring: Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Brian D'Arcy James, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Billy Cruddup, and Neil Huff

Premise: The Boston Globe's 'Spotlight' team uncovers a widespread scandal in which the Catholic Church deliberately covered up dozens of cases in which priests molested children.

Rated R for language and verbal depictions of child molestation

Some movies tell stories that need to be told. Spotlight is not one of those movies.

The central focus of Spotlight is a story—one that absolutely needed to be told—but the movie’s release comes some thirteen years after the story was published by a major newspaper and then widely distributed. On January 6, 2002, The Boston Globe published an article detailing a horrific scandal of child molestation within the local Catholic Church, one that had been swept under the rug by privileged members of the local Archdiocese. The name "Spotlight" comes from the four-person investigative team at The Globe that fronted the research and the writing of the story. The legacy comes from the 600+ additional stories that were published after the initial article was published and caught readers’ attention, and subsequently led many of them to share their own abuse stories. The Spotlight team's work was later awarded the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism. This movie is about them.

The process in which the four-person team conducted research, gathered facts, chased sources, and urged people to share their experiences is not always the stuff of a hugely-entertaining movie, but it has been rendered in an effective and memorable fashion by director Tom McCarthy, who also co-wrote the screenplay (with Josh Singer). In the tradition of the Academy Award-Winning All the President's Men—which depicted the unveiling of the Watergate scandal—this well-acted, well-paced, thought-provoking film is an engaging and non-exploitative flick about an earth-shaking journalistic revelation.

Plot

The staff of The Boston Globe is aware of new editor Marty Baron (Liev Shreiber) and his status as an outsider, someone not from Boston who's probably just taking over The Globe to cement his legacy. So it sets off a bit of eye-rolling and murmuring when one of the first things Marty does as editor is reassign the Spotlight team from a burgeoning Boston PD investigation to a barely-remembered story about a supposedly child-abusing priest who ducked the law years back. But the job's the job, so Spotlight—team leader Walter 'Robby' Robinson (Michael Keaton), ace reporter Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), no-nonsense Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and family man Matt Carroll (Brian D'Arcy James)—begins digging into the archives for information. The investigation initially seems so stale and archaic that deputy editor Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery) is about to request their reassignment, but then they come across a victim of childhood abuse, the twitchy, emotionally-scarred Phil Salviano (Neil Huff). Salviano turns out to have names of a few fellow victims, names of a few offending priests, and information on two local attorneys who've had their hands in these kinds of cases, hotshot DA Eric Macleish (Billy Cruddup), who "really can't talk about that stuff", and browbeaten prosecutor Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci), who has gotten very unpopular from trying to push these controversial cases. "The church is watching me," is a phrase Spotlight hears from both, meaning Macleish will do whatever it takes to get rid of the cases quickly while Garabedian can rarely get his clients anything because of the church’s influence in Irish-Catholic Boston. Spotlight also hits the jackpot with a connection of Salviano's, a psychotherapist and former priest who’s spent years researching abuse and gives them mountains of information and stunning statistics.

As the investigation deepens for Spotlight, so does the opposition, both from the church and its lawyers to some of their fellow Bostonians. "The church has done a lot of good in this city," some say, "you want to cause problems for the church just over a few bad apples?" "You want to sue the church?" Others demand angrily. Doors get slammed in their faces. Robby has a falling-out with a childhood friend and is brushed off by the staff of his old prep school. The number of guilty priests they find begins to pile up, as does the number of victims. And worst of all, lawyers and victims alike begin to accuse the staff of The Globe of negligence, with multiple sources saying they complained or forwarded information about the abuse to the paper years ago, only for the stories to receive minimal attention, or no ink at all.

What Works?

Spotlight should be lauded for its subtlety. Movies about fast-talking journalists conducting emotional interviews and chasing sources are not always subtle, but Singer and McCarthy’s screenplay is just about the facts, avoiding church-bashing political statements, making palpable the pain of abuse survivors without any flashback sequences, emotional hysterics, or forcibly graphic details, and only quietly conveying the sense of victory and closure at film’s end. There are no unnecessary high-suspense sequences, no romantic subplots or other unnecessary distractions; the movie leans on its harrowing subject matter and dramatic reveals to carry it, and it works. This is a talky film, but attentive viewers will be rewarded, as the names, places and even character-building hints dropped early on almost always come back to bolster the story’s revelations. To whit, an early meeting between new editor Baron and the ranking church Cardinal (Len Cariou) seems an amiable meeting in which the clergyman discusses how the Church and The Globe can work together, but his gentle presumptions of this partnership and his welcoming “gift” of a copy of the Catholic Church Catechism seem like a none-too-subtle power play, made all the more threatening given that the audience knows Baron A) is Jewish, and B) has already put his people on the church’s case.  Similarly, there are at least a half-dozen moments in which characters wordlessly react to being confronted with the honest truth of the scandal, whether as defensive lawyers/Bostonians or scarred former victims, and the pain, fear, amazement, anger or confusion—or some combination of these emotions—crawls slowly across their faces. Viewers will watch these moments with bated breath, as the screenplay has always built things up enough for the audience to eagerly-anticipate these crucial moments.

This is a procedural set mostly in the newsroom or on the fact-hunting trail, and even the main characters are given little or no back-story, but the large cast is rock-solid. Mark Ruffalo has the showiest role as the twitchy, assertive Rezendes, who lacks an abundance of social graces, but it was Rachel McAdams who, for me, hit the nail on the head the most often, her big eyes and expressive features perfectly conveying both the no-nonsense, professional reporter and the sympathetic and often-appalled human being as she learns the facts and hears the stories. The effortlessly-likable Keaton is a big asset, Mad Men’s Slattery brightens up a few scenes with his trademark bluster, and Schreiber’s low-key portrayal of the straight-arrow editor pays off when his quiet but sincere compliments to the Spotlight team near the end of their investigation proves one of the movie’s muted but undeniable emotional uplifts.

What Doesn’t Work?

Like numerous recent based-on-a-true-story films, Spotlight’s fact-based, this-is-how-it-happened approach does not lend itself easily to big emotional arcs or a particularly-entertaining theater-going experience. In fact, the one big, noisy confrontation feels like the one really “Hollywood” moment in the movie—gratifying, perhaps, for the audience that has stuck with this talky film, but a little unnecessary. For any real emotional pay-off, viewers must pay attention from the start. There are a lot of names mentioned, a lot of minor characters introduced, plenty of legal terms uttered and plenty of statistics presented, and yet, as stated previously, almost all of it will come back to mean something in the end. If you’ve paid attention and stuck with it, the closing scenes’ quiet, cathartic moments—and the informative and haunting end titles right before the credits—will pack a punch that allow you to leave the theatre on an engaged, mind-racing high.

Content

There’s no violence, no nudity, no blood and fairly-limited profanity, but Spotlight earns its R rating with a few four-letter words and the seriousness of its material. Some frank sexual terminology is used, though, of course, it’s always in the midst of relaying damaging abuse experiences and not used in a joking or would-be comedic manner. Some of the abuse victims cry when relaying their experiences to the Spotlight team, and others bear needle marks or clear physical, emotional and psychological scars. In addition, Catholics or other church-goers may feel uncomfortable pondering the true events described in the film.

In fact, in case there are any Catholics or other denominational Christians among my readers, I want to provide a word of clarity. I was raised Catholic and still regularly attend church (though for reasons of my own, I’ve become a Baptist since college—these reasons are entirely unrelated to abuse in the church, which I never encountered). Almost everyone in my immediate and extended family was baptized into the Catholic Church and regularly attended mass at some point in their lives. I hadn’t heard of The Boston Globe’s revelations until I began hearing about Spotlight, but, as an adult, I have been made aware of the sad real-life fact of abuse of boys (and girls) in the church by priests. In addition, I am usually quite able to separate movies and real life, even if the movies, like this one, are fact-based.

I say all this to let you know, whether you want to see this movie or not, I do not believe this movie was intended as a smear campaign against the Catholic Church, church in general, or any religion. It does not make any “labeling” statements about God or people who believe in God and make His work their life's work (God, in fact, is seldom mentioned). The Globe's pieces were simply pointing out condemnable acts committed by people in the institution of the church—acts non-religious people/non-church-affiliated people are surely every bit as likely to commit. If Spotlight’s story broke today, in 2015, it would probably be used as ammunition against the religious/Catholic/Christian community, and that community would probably react defensively. But this movie is merely re-enacting events—it is not making any kind of special statement except noting that, at the time, members of the Catholic Archdiosece were improperly using their power and positions of influence and covering up those who were caught misusing it. This movie doesn’t make me ashamed of my time in the Catholic Church nor does it make me look down on those who are still in it (of course, I absolutely look down on and do not tolerate anyone’s abuse of children, least of all people who are welcomed into people’s homes and families as role models and spiritual leaders). Like The Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles, I believe Spotlight was intended to open people’s eyes, and to make people aware of what sometimes does and should not happen in the church. It doesn’t soften the blow—the word “pedophile” is used more than once, sometimes as in “pedophile priests”—and there’s a montage set to a children’s choir singing a Christmas carol that generates a chill as you wonder if any of those children have been exposed to these kinds of acts. This is all a long way of saying Spotlight, like the real life investigation that inspired it, deals with some tough stuff, but if you’re interested in the movie and you’re a person of faith, you will be challenged by the stated harshness of acts committed by supposed people of faith, but you will not be insulted or demeaned or treated to a God-hating, religion-hating message.

Bottom Line

Chronicling a lengthy Boston Globe investigation that revealed a large-scale cover up of child abuse by priests in the Catholic Church—an investigation that won a Pulitzer Prize—Spotlight isn’t always an easy movie to watch, both because of some tough subject matter and a talky, information-heavy story. That said, it’s a smart, no-nonsense procedural boasting a strong cast (Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams) and a great script that have generated Oscar talk. It’s also a non-exploitative film that, to my mind, is not an aggressively God-hating or church-hating feature. Diligent, focused viewers will be rewarded with an affecting and very well-made film.

Spotlight (2015)

Directed by Tom McCarthy

Screenplay by Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer

Rated R

Length: 128 minutes