Spotlight Shines with Great Power
By Mark Naglazas
FILM Spotlight (M) 4.5 stars Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams Director Tom McCarthy Review Mark Naglazas The newspaper picture is one of Hollywood’s richest sub-genres, yielding great comedies and satires (His Girl Friday, Broadcast News), sour dissections of the profession (Ace in the Hole, The Sweet Smell of Success) and several flat-out masterpieces (Citizen Kane, Network). However, not even the greatest of all movies about newspapers, All the President’s Men, has been so devoted to capturing the unglamorous grind of investigative journalism as Spotlight, which tells the true story of the Boston’s Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-wining expose of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Indeed, co-writer and director Tom McCarthy (The Visitor) was so intent on recreating the hard slog of putting together a great story – the hours wading through documents, the struggle to get witnesses to talk, the butting up against legal barriers – he risked boring the audience. It was a risk worth taking as McCarthy and his remarkable ensemble cast have made the slow-drip gathering of facts as gripping as any jacked-up Hollywood thriller, reminding us that truth is always stranger and more compelling than fiction. Most importantly, Spotlight does not pander to its heroes, the Globe’s famous investigative unit for which the film is named. Walter “Robbie” Robinson (Michael Keaton) and his crew (Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian D’arcy James) are supposed to be the best in the business. Yet when the paper’s new editor Marty Baron (Liev Schrieber) stands in front of the Globe’s staff for the first time in July, 2001, and asks why Spotlight hasn’t investigated a local lawyer’s claim that Cardinal Law knew about a notorious paedophile priest everyone stands around and shrugs, like school kids making excuses for not doing their homework. Once they pick up the scent, however, Robbie and his bloodhounds will not give up on their pursuit of the paedophile priests who avoided prosecution because of the power the Catholic Church, even when they’re pulled away to cover the biggest news event of their lives, the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York. The team are stunned when they discover the number of abusers who’ve been moved around by the Church. However, when the editors move to publish their findings Robbie persuades them to give them more time to did deeper, to go after the system and Cardinal Law (Len Cariou). Spotlight is such an unflashy, modestly scaled movie – it has none of the wit of The Big Short, none of the soaring passion of Carol and there’s not a bear in sight – so it took me second viewing to appreciate the artistry of this richly deserved best picture Oscar contender. While the focus is on the minutiae of the investigation McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer (The Fifth Estate) masterfully weave through an examination of Massachusetts society and why its deeply tribal nature allowed the Church to cover up so many cases of abuse. “If it takes a village to raise a child it takes a village to abuse one,” Ruffalo’ Mike Rezendes is told by a lawyer of Armenian descent Mitchell Garabedian leading a class action on behalf of a group of victims (he’s played by Stanley Tucci in a superbly nuanced performance). Garabedian also points out that the only reason why he has challenging the Church is that he’s an outsider as is the new editor of the Boston Globe, who is Jewish. “This city, these people. Making the rest of us feel like we don’t belong. But they’re no better than the rest of us.” Indeed, the film is at its most fascinating when it becomes clear that the Globe didn’t follow up on the story years earlier when evidence that the Church was moving sexual abusers from parish to parish because the journalists are all part of the same Catholic community. Like the articles that won Spotlight the Pulitzer, the movie is a superlative piece of reportage, with the drama not imposed – not a moment rings false – but flows naturally from a group of smart, hard-working people doing their jobs. It’s also a reminder in this age of citizen journalism, in which anyone with an iPhone and an email account can make a name for themselves, of the importance of professionalism.
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