Spotlight is about the brutally honest true story of how a team of investigative journalists unveiled an abusive pedophilia scandal and cover-up that was orchestrated by Catholic priests in the city of Boston, which even stretched to Southie. This lead to a scandal all over America and the world. The season is summer and the year is 2001, just before 9/11. The Boston Globe welcomes in a new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) who is curious to know why abusive and child-molesting Catholic priests have gone unpunished, avoiding scorn and even criminal justice.
So he sets the Globe’s investigative Spotlight team onto the story. This is spearheaded by Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton) and includes passionate and emotional Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) with Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams). In a six month period, they piece together a case of harsh and brutally honest truth about a well-planned, well-orchestrated cover-up of child sexual abuse that has gone on for decades. It’s an audacious journalistic investigation that goes on to win a Pulitzer Prize.
Corruption has been at the forefront of many minds these past years. It’s a word that has been in the media a lot of late and for good reason. We live in a cruel world and many are willing to do whatever it takes to win regardless of morality and ethics. People are willing to throw their integrity in the trash for commodity items like cash. but in this movie it’s for corruption in the Catholic Church. They molested and raped children. The lawyers knew it. The politicians knew it. Even the cops knew it. The whole community knew about it and did nothing. Boston has a large Catholic population but religion is a following that binds people together, despite color, creed, gender or sexual orientation. Belief in God is what keeps many people going. It helps people to get through life. It gives many hope and the idea that life isn’t so bad.
Everybody knows journalists are the ones who ask the hard questions. Investigative journalists ask the even harder questions. Journalists are the thorn on a rose-bush, but investigative journalists are the whole damn rose-bush. The team is poking their noses where they don’t belong, trying to dig up dirt on Boston’s degenerative clergy. The hypocrisy of the priests in this movie isn’t even laughable. It’s downright disgusting and completely unthinkable. These are members of our society who we thought couldn’t be bought or corrupted. They were supposed to be society’s soul– untainted– but they have blackened their souls with infidelity and broken their vows of celibacy, thus abusing their power by molesting children.
Mark Ruffalo (Avengers) delivers a truly heartwarming performance. His character is from Boston, so this is personal to him, and he really gets passionate and animated in the role when the big boss wants to take down the system rather than the Catholic Church themselves (contrary to what was first thought out when they first started their case). They were ready to sue the Catholic Church until they saw the bigger picture. Many of the employees of the Globe are from Boston and this case means something to all of them. What’s more is that the guilty walk free. The Church is too big to take down. The Church is on our streets, in our homes and to take down a corrupt establishment like that, would mean taking down many people’s will to live. The reality is that the establishment as a whole is not bad; it’s just a small sector.
Michael Keaton (Birdman), Rachel McAdams (True Detective), Liev Schreiber (X-Men) and John Slattery (Ant-Man) give high quality performances. In addition, Stanley Tucci (Hunger Games) as Mitchell Garabedian, the lawyer of many victims and Billy Crudup (Stanford Prison Experiment) as Eric Macleish, the lawyer of the Church perform well too. Macleish – a lawyer who does not care as long as he got paid – soon is wiped of the smug grin on his face when Keaton puts him in his place and he soon caved. Keaton’s performance was excellent and very inspirational.
I have to be honest; you should know what you’re getting yourself into before embarking on this movie. Once you’ve watched it, there is no going back. It’s seriously grim and depressing with the high point being only at the end when they oust the priests to the public. It confirms already established cynicism about The Church, but it’s the ‘should be’ pure people of our world taking advantage of the innocent, and the other group of ‘should be’ pure people, relieving children of their innocence. It’s soul-destroying stuff. I’d only recommend going to see this movie if you think you can take a movie like this as it deals with these themes in a controversial yet brutally honest way. Nobody publicly opposes the church. People who oppose this establishment tend to get socially discriminated against in their communities. The Church has some serious pull on people and to oppose them is seen as a moral crime in itself. What can the Church tell us is morally sound when members of their order are doing things like this?
Despite its unsavory concept on the backdrop of Boston, I still managed to love Spotlight. It’s grim, serious, and yet there are a few happy moments and great performances from every member of the main and supporting cast. These factors combined with great writing and direction make it no wonder the film has been hit with six Oscar nominations. Some of the nominations include Best Director and Best Original Screenplay in addition to Best Picture, and I wouldn’t be disappointed if Spotlight happen to win all three.