UNITED STATES
The New Yorker

BY RICHARD BRODY

The fine points of journalistic investigation are often thrilling to observe in the new movie “Spotlight,” nowhere more so than in the document-centered work by which reporters coax information from the government. Set mainly in 2001, the movie unfolds the work done by a quartet of reporters at the Boston Globe (called the Spotlight team) who revealed that many local priests had been sexually preying on minors, that the church had been doing its best to cover up their crimes, and that the local government was also complicit in that cover-up.

Yet, despite the movie’s stirring depiction of the vital societal role played by fearlessly independent newspapers, and despite its vision of horrific but essential truths revealed by deeply committed journalists, “Spotlight” ultimately leaves behind the numbing satisfaction of familiar emotions and the dull thud of familiar gratifications. What the movie…