DAVID ADAMS finds Spotlight an intricate production about a quest to expose evil…
Spotlight (M)
In a word: Intense
A look under the covers at a Boston Globe investigation into the cover-up surrounding the abuse of children by Catholic priests in the US city, this is an intense and, at times, harrowing film.
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SHINING A LIGHT: The Spotlight team at work – Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James). “A measured rather than sensationalist film which gives a realistic picture of the story behind the story.” |
The story focuses on the work of the Globe’s investigative team – known as Spotlight – and how, thanks to the arrival of a new editor at the paper Marty Baron (played by Liev Schreiber), in 2001 it launched an investigation into not just the fact that the abuse occurred on a massive scale but the subsequent attempts by the Roman Catholic Church to cover it up.
It’s a detailed story tracing the steps the reporters took as they slowly pieced together what had happened based on victim testimonies and the fight to have a series of court documents unsealed even as they resist the subtle and not-so-subtle pressure placed upon them in a town where the Roman Catholic Church was held in high esteem.
While we know we happened in the end – the scandal led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston (here played by Len Cariou), it’s the journey to get there that counts here.
This means that while the ensemble cast ably bring to life the four members of the Spotlight team – Walter ‘Robby’ Robinson (Michael Keaton), Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matty Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) – as well as the somewhat eccentric lawyer who ends up helping them, Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci), we only see glimpses into life outside the job and the toll that working on such a story takes on them (although it’s probably fair to say that during the investigation, they didn’t really have much of a life outside the office anyway).
Director Tom McCarthy keeps the focus tight– this is a journalistic thriller in the vein of the classic story of the uncovering of the Watergate scandal, All The President’s Men, rather than a character-driven story.
And while the film shows the power of journalism at it’s best, it also illustrates some of the ambiguities of the job and the day-to-day grind of the task at hand. The team’s own imperfections – including the fact that they had all the pieces for the story years earlier but failed to put them together – are also explored here.
A measured rather than sensationalist film which gives a realistic picture of the story behind the story
