Spotlight (2015): Breaking A Scandalous Silence

2015 seems to be the year of the well-crafted “small” film. The recent Bridge of Spies and Brooklyn and the soon to be released Carol and The Danish Girl are critically acclaimed examples.  Spotlight is surely at the head of this pack. At its core, this movie is a journalism procedural, but giving it such a label does not do justice to the filmmakers’ accomplishment here.

Spotlight was directed and co-written by Tom McCarthy, whose previous credits include The Station Agent (2003) and The Visitor (2007), both of which were lovely little cinema gems. (He also wrote and directed the Paul Giamotti vehicle, Win Win (2011), which I have not seen, but most everyone admired.)  Spotlight is a bigger deal, in part due to its greatly enhanced budget and star-laden cast, but mostly because of its subject – the Pulitzer Prize winning investigation by a team of Boston Globe reporters that exposed widespread child abuse by Catholic clergy and the scandal of a decades-long, orchestrated cover-up by the church hierarchy.

Of course, at this point, we’ve been hearing about this stuff for years, so the story is not new. But it is still shocking.  One of the marvels of Spotlight for me was the fact that, while I pretty much knew going in how the picture would turn out, I found myself riveted throughout.  The horror of the priests’ conduct and the shame and suffering of their victims even years later, may be experienced second-hand as we watch the reporters dig and delve into the story, yet it is not muted. Nor is the courage and perseverance of the Globe’s “Spotlight” investigative team members. Their efforts to find out what was really happening and who knew about it were resisted and hampered every step of the way not only by church officials, but by Boston's legal, political, and social hierarchy in this notably Catholic city. Those fine folks apparently believed that it was more important to protect the church than to expose the rot beneath the institution’s noble veneer, even if that meant exposing more and more children to possible harm.

The movie is a near perfect drama, featuring a great and true story, remarkable attention to detail - from the period clothing to the attitudes of the journalists, lawyers and even the victims; along with smart pacing and beautiful acting in an ensemble setting by a terrific cast. Spotlight has been compared favorably to that other great investigative journalism film, All the Presidents Men (1976), and I have read that newspaper journalists give it high marks for accuracy and realism. All I can say, as a moviegoer, is that it sure looked and felt real to me. We see the diligent hard work, the brainstorming, the step-by-step piecing together of evidence, the strategy sessions, multiple interviews, and the coming together of a story that shocked the hardened journalists themselves. Between ten and twenty percent of Boston’s more than 700 priests may have been involved.

The movie’s focus stays steadfastly on the investigation itself; it is not sidetracked by reporters’ family troubles, romantic interests, or other digressions.

I can't say enough good things about the actors. Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan [2013 - ]) plays Marty Baron, the soft-spoken but steel-spined incoming editor of the Boston Globe in 2001, an outsider with the guts to tackle a story that the community seemingly did not want to hear. The Spotlight investigative team was headed by "Robbie" Robinson, played here by Michael Keaton (Birdman [2014]). Keaton is known for his intensity, and certainly brings this, but without going over the top. He also credibly presents his character’s personal and moral dilemmas.  Robbie has a nose for a good story and likes a good fight, but initially has well-founded concerns about the profound shockwaves an investigation of the church will bring not only his way, but to his newspaper and to his community as well. Rachel McAdam (Midnight in Paris [2011]) portrays Sacha Pfeiffer, a persistent, seemingly tireless reporter, with the kind of empathy that allows victims to share their stories and open our hearts. McAdam can't help being pretty, but she has dressed down for this part, and is in no way glamorous. Mark Ruffalo (The Avengers [2012]) is Mike Rezendes, a passionate journalist, who becomes more and more outraged as the scope of the problem and the venality as of the church hierarchy comes increasingly into focus.  I've not been a huge fan of Ruffalo in the many movies in which he plays the sort of scruffy but cuddly love interest of various actresses (Reese Witherspoon, Meg Ryan, Julianne Moore, etc.), but he is not cuddly here – he is a revelation.

Also excellent are Stanley Tucci as the lawyer Mitchell Garabadjian, fighting to get compensation for victims and an acknowledgment of wrongdoing by the church; Jamey Sheridan as a socially and politically powerful attorney for the church, and especially Michael Cyril Creighton, as a deeply sorrowful adult man who, as a child, had been molested for years by his priest. Through his narrative, and that of several other characters, we begin to understand just how easy it was for the molesters to find and abuse their prey. It’s less easy to understand how their superiors, and a complacent system of enablers could sweep the problem under the rug for decades.

Still, although a true morality tale, Spotlight is not a horror film. Rather it portrays a special kind of heroism, and is thus, in a way, uplifting. And if you like well-made, well acted motion pictures, you can’t do much better than this one.