Spotlight

Score:  ****1/2 out of ***** (A)

Directed by Tom McCarthy
Starring Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, et. al.
Running time:  129 minutes
Rated R

Long Story Short:  Spotlight is a historical drama based on the 2001 Boston Globe investigation into the Catholic Church's priest abuse cover up.  Featuring a non-showy but fantastic cast and a remarkable script, the drama is very interesting and entertaining.  But it also reports the real story itself both vividly and powerfully, making for an unforgettable film.  A must-see.


In 2001, the Boston Globe goes through a major transition, hiring editor Marty Baron (Schreriber), an outsider among a staff of mostly Boston natives.  One of Baron's first actions is to get to know the Globe's crack investigative team, known as Spotlight.  Led by Walter Robinson (Keaton), the team of four spends months doing in-depth research on individual reports.  Initially skeptical of the returns on this slow, expensive process, Baron nevertheless gives them a chance by putting them on the case of a possible cover-up by Cardinal Law of a local priest's pedophilia.  Spotlight is doubtful of the case; as city natives, they know how central the Catholic Church is to the city.  Not only will this make the investigation sensitive, it also gives them few good sources to work with.

Still, Robinson and his team of Michael (Ruffalo), Sacha (McAdams), and Matt (James) dig in and begin to find out things that startle them.  Working with an ostracized victims' rights activist and a harried but determined victims' lawyer, among others, Spotlight finds that the initial abuse case was hardly isolated.  Even more disturbingly, a pattern of behavior in hiding the cases emerges.  Despite  intimidation from some of the most powerful figures in the city, and intervening events (9/11), the team brings the case to its shocking, but essential, conclusion.

Spotlight features a rather odd assembly of actors for its ensemble, but one that works brilliantly together.  Spotlight, the group, is a true team and therefore there is no one main character.  So I'll start with Michael Keaton as Robinson, the coordinator.  The script, and Keaton himself, could have tried to make this the star of the show, wise and heroic.  He is both of those things, but not in a Hollywood way.  As is true for all the Spotlight members, Robinson is a nose-to-the-grindstone everyman whose journalistic experience, and specifically to Boston, flows naturally from Keaton's performance.  As a decision-maker, Robinson can't afford to be quite as idealistic or passionate as the others, forcing some truly agonizing decisions on him and recalling painful past mistakes.  An excellent job, if not a showy one.  Mark Ruffalo's Michael is next up, as he is the most fervently involved.  His dogged persistence as a journalist, undeterred by failure, is realistically done - comes across as the practiced professional - especially early in the film.  Ruffalo gets the most of the film's few bursts of emotion, and they are both genuine and feel earned.  Excellent work here, too.  McAdams' Sacha is next, not featured quite as much as Keaton or Ruffalo but still crucial.  She is often even more understated than her two co-stars, although she makes for an excellent audience surrogate in her interviews of the priests' victims.  The heart of Spotlight in many ways, McAdams does a really impressive job.  I've seen Keaton do this before (Birdman), but I had not seen such bravura performances from Ruffalo or McAdams before.  Now I know they are capable, too.  Brian d'Arcy James is the fourth member of the team, but he's the odd man out; not much to say here, he's fine but irrelevant.

It's worth pointing out a few of the non-Spotlight actors as well.  John Slattery and especially Liev Schreiber as the Globe editor are both great "others" at the paper.  Schreiber's Baron has to deal with everyone else's skepticism of him (minor or major) as a non-Bostonian (and Jew).  Yet he portrays great confidence and competence, and quietly moves forward against all opposition.  Stanley Tucci is great as a bedraggled victims' lawyer, his keen intelligence and constant state of annoyance/ exasperation on display.  And finally (though there are more good ones), Neal Huff as Saviano, a victims' advocate, steals a few scenes and is among the first to inject the moral urgency of the story.

A "biographical drama" about the Globe's investigation of the priest abuse cover-up in 2001, Spotlight succeeds brilliantly in both providing an immersive story and conveying the horror of the realities of the case.  A ton of credit should be given to the writers:  despite the fact that we know the outcome (although familiarity with the details may vary), and the not very Hollywood-like stakes, the film is riveting, dramatic throughout, and even suspenseful occasionally.  The pace is great, and even when a certain inevitability starts in, alternate foci (past journalistic mistakes, etc.) slide in naturally to compensate.  It can be difficult for a script to know just how much to tell about its characters - how deep to go - and Spotlight gets that just right.  Its characters are fully realized humans, but we aren't distracted from the main story ever.  Although Spotlight works on the steady, grounded work of its journalists, there are moments of excitement in the everyday, too.  As a librarian, I was especially happy to find some good scenes of searching the archives and even using microfilm (don't worry, there's not too much of that but it really is fun!).

Alongside the great dramatic structure and proceedings, Spotlight also engages the real subject matter head on in powerful ways.  It starts with interviews of victims, now adult, and the authentic weight of their retelling is chilling, shocking, and likely to bring you to tears.  It's not done sensationally, but it drove home, for me, the reality of the effects, both short- and long-term, better than anything else I've read or seen.  Scenes dealing with the lawyers and the Church itself are not as powerful, of course, but no less effective.  Yes, there are some true villains, but many of the responsible were just part of a huge web, their lying eventually becoming a habit whose true meaning became lost to them.  So by the end, culminating in a perfect last shot, you get a sense of the scope of that historic Globe report.  I should also mention its clear message about the importance of good journalism itself, under threat by today's demand for instant gratification which is symbolized here by everything from the Globe's circulation pressures to a big AOL billboard, among others.

***

Spotlight finishes off the year 2015 in spectacular fashion, a film absolutely worthy of its awards nominations (and wins).  It shares a lot in common with other fantastic 2015 films*, Selma and The Big Short, though of course they are quite different in other ways.  Essentially, these films took major historical developments (from the recent past, at that) and ingeniously combined both vivid, effective portraits of those real events with the most engaging drama and characters that you can find in Hollywood.  Frankly I'm often skeptical about historical films - especially of recent events - because they can rely too much on "but it's a true story!" and overdramatize events.  However, these three films not only avoided those pitfalls, they embraced the opportunities of using real life to make their films that much better.  What a way to end the year, possibly the best year in the modern era for film.  Stay tuned to my blog next week for my traditional year-end posts:  top 10 films, Oscar-type awards, and more.  And certainly, if you have the chance make sure you see Spotlight.

*I define a film's release year as the date of its wide release in the U.S.  Thus Selma is a 2015 film (January 9) as is Spotlight (November 25) - though "wide release" still sometimes means only in cities since Spotlight just got to my (rural) area last week.





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