NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald
By Peter Calder
Journalists are constantly exasperated by the depiction of journalism in the movies: crusading reporters who never take notes write their own (very bad) headlines for stories based on hunches, improbable disclosures, lucky breaks and dramatic confrontations.
So among the many deeply satisfying aspects of this film, which stakes an early claim for a spot on the year’s top-10 list, is that the reporters in it act like reporters. They make a lot of phone calls, take notes, wheedle and plead and doorstep: they use rulers to guide their line-by-line searches through directories and documents (the film is set in the internet’s infancy); they drink a lot of bad coffee.
The embedded idea – that most good journalism is unglamorous, hard-slog drudgery – may seem an unprepossessing concept for a film. But Spotlight enthralls because it remains so faithful to the facts, eschewing cheap theatrics and heroic mythmaking. Like the journos whose work it depicts, it never forgets that it’s all about the story.
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