(USA, 120 min.)
Dir. Tom McCarthy, Writ. Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer
Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev
Schreiber, John Slattery, Brian d’Arcy James, Stanley Tucci
 |
| Photo courtesy of eOne Films |
Fans of Linden MacIntyre’s Giller Prize-winning novel The Bishop’s Man must, must, must see Spotlight. Spotlight doesn’t adapt MacIntyre’s excellent 2009 Canadian novel
about a so-called “clean-up man” of the clothe who enabled his fellow clergy to
molest young parishioners without reprisal or scandal, but fans of the book are
bound to be taken by this equally incendiary film about the story that broke
the church’s web of corruption wide open. This true tale dramatizes the
landmark 2002 feat of journalism by the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe, which exposed the
cover-ups of sexual abuse in the local Catholic Archdiocese with an ongoing
commitment to the story. (Read the Spotlight series here.) The complexity and wrestling with guilt and faith one reads in The Bishop's Man find a powerful counterpoint in Spotlight as the mess of cleaning up the cover-up spins a story that leaves one spinning. Print might be dying, but Spotlight makes a solid case for the value of a free, impartial,
and intelligent press.
The heroic journalists of Spotlight (it would be unfair to call them anything less than heroes) are a half-dozen reporters and editors. Michael Keaton headlines the ensembles as Walter ‘Robby’ Robinson, the leader of the Spotlight team who takes the assignment to pursue allegations of sexual misconduct by a Boston priest when the Globe’s new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), asks him to prioritize the story. The assignment feels especially awkward for a Bostonian, given the city’s strong Catholic contingent and the Church’s relationship with the Globe. A lead’s a lead, though, and the Spotlight team follows it.
Especially keen to tackle the story is Spotlight’s
passionate reporter Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), who chases paper trails and
questions witnesses with more intuition and genuine interest than a lawyer ever
could. As Rezendes and Robinson work with teammates Sacha Pfeiffer (Canada’s
Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James), they uncover a rampant
problem. Not only do the cases of sexual abuses by priests tally much higher
than the reporters anticipate, but the Spotlight team discovers a web of
cover-ups and collusions that indicate that the Archdiocese willingly shuffled
predator priests from parish to parish and enabled the ongoing victimization of
the faithful.
What makes Spotlight
especially great isn’t simply its thorough exposure of the story, which unfolds
like a thriller, but rather the way in which director/writer Tom McCarthy (The Visitor) and writer Josh Singer (The Fifth Estate) root the resolve of
the Spotlight team in their understanding of how the Church’s crimes hurt the
victims. One especially crucial sequence crosscuts an interviews between
Rezendes and a victim (Patrick LeBlanc) with an interview between Pfeiffer and
another victim (Michael Cyril Creighton), and as the two reports listen to two
different men explain how a mentor violated his trust, the film deftly conveys
in just one sequence the collective pain to which the Spotlight piece must give
voice. Editor Tom McArdle crosscuts the scene sharply and intensely, and Spotlight draws the audience in as the
film cuts to close-ups as Leblanc and Creighton tell the victims’ with
increasingly emotional delivery and conviction. Ruffalo and McAdams give
compelling reactions shots with which the audience may look into the full scope
of the story, and McAdams offers an especially fine hold on a reporter’s
objectivity in this moment as Spotlight
propels the audience into the investigative quest to find judgement where the
system fails its victims.
Just as the Pulitzer Prize-winning story comes to the Boston Globe thanks to the skills of a whip
smart team, Spotlight races towards
inevitable accolades thanks to the strength of the team playing these intrepid
reporters. Ruffalo gets the most outwardly expressive part of the film as
Rezendes loses his grasp on objectivity and becomes increasingly, desperately,
and emotionally invested in getting this story to the headlines. Spotlight gives him a standout scene to
shout and hit a strong emotional point home, but the ultimately finds its
staying power in the stalwart coolness and even-handedness of Keaton and McAdams’
performances as Robinson and Pfeiffer.
As Robinson, Keaton shows remarkable restraint as the veteran
of the team who holds Spotlight’s integrity at the Globe like a rock. This performance is far from the showy bravura
of Birdman that terrifically draws on
Keaton’s persona, but his assurance and composure lends both a sense of duty
and, more significantly, a level of guilt to the story that Spotlight seeks to tell. Keeping silent
has a burden, and Keaton’s Robinson wears it gravely as his search into the
depths of the case reveal unsettling truths about himself and journalism more
broadly. McAdams, similarly, balances a journalist’s objectivity with the
humanity and compassion a viewer needs to connect with Spotlight emotionally. As her character grapples with questions of
faith and family while building a case against the Church, McAdams helps Spotlight weigh the gravity of the case
and the load a writer carries when she or he exposes a secret that people don’t
want to read. Everyone in Spotlight,
from Schreiber’s level-headed outside to John Slattery’s wily turn as a Globe editor to James’s memorable fourth
pillar of the reporting team to Stanley Tucci’s scene-stealing performance as a
passionate lawyer, is uniformly excellent. The involving score by Canuck
composer Howard Shore makes the search extra thrilling and the story deeply
stirring.
Spotlight deserves
to make another headline as notable rebound for Tom McCarthy. McCarthy finds
himself back in his element after the unfortunate Adam Sandler comedy The Cobbler (one of this blog’s picks
for the worst films of 2014) with this astute and substantially accessible
drama. Like the emotional wallop of The
Visitor, which unpacks the complexity of migration in post-9/11 America
through a bittersweet romance, Spotlight
engages the audience with the plight of believable characters whose motivations
inspire viewers to leave the theatre and look at the world with a new
perspective. As a newsroom drama, Spotlight
is akin to All the President’s Men
with its inspiring dramatization of the power of the pen, but the story it puts
into the spotlight gives it additional resonance that cannot be beat.
Rating: ★★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Spotlight is now in theatres from eOne Films.
