A Film that Embodies the Immense Integrity of its Characters
It's a joy to walk out of a film that works. Not one that has a great script or great action scenes that carry the dead weight, but a movie that works in every possible regard. Tom McCarthy's Spotlight is such a film. It tells the true story of the Boston Globe's Spotlight investigative unit that broke the story of the cover-up by the Catholic Church of the sexual abuse of minors at the hands of priests, and it does so with incredible accuracy and dignity. The film never once tries to build the narrative into something more than it is, which is an account of good journalists doing good work.
McCarthy and Josh Singer's script is very straightforward, beginning with new editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) tasking Spotlight with investigating the abuse and then pushing forward until the story is published. The team—consisting of Walter "Robby" Robinson (Michael Keaton), Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfieffer (Rachel McAdams), and Matt Carroll (Brian D'Arcy James)—is portrayed as a group of real people with deep roots in Boston who at one point or another were all practicing Catholics. Even the most eccentric character in the film, an attorney with a heart of gold representing abuse victims, feels entirely grounded and true to life. There's no grandstanding on display in Spotlight, just wonderfully subdued work from all involved.
The cast manages to disappear into their roles without any great flourish. Instead, they truly inhabit the people they play, looking and sounding entirely at home in both the Boston Globe offices and when tracking down a lead on their story. It's only icing on the cake that the actors required to speak with that famous Kennedy-esque New England accent, like Keaton and John Slattery (as Globe editor Ben Bradlee, Jr.), never once slip into self-parody. Stanely Tucci is a standout as Mitch Garabedian, the aforementioned good attorney, adding fire and conviction to every scene he appears in—not that it's otherwise lacking. Schreiber manages to steal the show with arguably the most understated performance in the film. Baron was at the New York Times and then the Miami Herald before arriving at the Globe, and despite his outsider status at a paper staffed mostly by locals, he's portrayed here as quietly and intelligently encouraging his team to do the best, most thoroughly researched work possible. He doesn't want to expose the guilty priests, he wants to expose the guilty institution.
The fact that a Boston institution such as the Globe became the paper to break the Church sex scandal wide open allows the filmmakers to easily avoid demonizing the Church in such a way that it becomes something blatantly evil, such as the Empire in Star Wars. At no point are reporters followed home by shady figures in black sedans, nor do they receive death threats or suspicious late night phone calls. The Church remains ominous simply because it's there, and not because of fabricated cloak and dagger. A fantastic sequence in the film depicts the Spotlight team members individually seeking out and interviewing various victims, and throughout we often see churches in the background, a subtle reminder of the Church's looming presence. It's a nuanced approach that leaves the Church's reputation up to the public, as it was when the story broke.
The sexual abuse of minors and the subsequent cover-ups are offenses worthy of massive defamation, but the filmmakers, like the Spotlight team, take no pleasure in exposing this story, and this is how the film sticks the landing. There's no joy when the jobs is done, just the satisfaction of knowing that good work is begetting good will and good actions. The true gratification, if there is any, can come only in telling the story well, whether it's on the page or the screen. In both cases, the respective teams behind their works can stand tall and proud.