After overlooking a couple of stories of child abuse in the local Catholic diocese, new editor on the block for the Boston Globe, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), demands the stories be thoroughly investigated. He puts current affairs team, Spotlight, on the job and Robby Robinson (Michael Keaton), Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian d”arcy James) get on the case.
As they delve further into the case they find there’s much more to the story than the mere ravings of a couple of local cranks and a rogue lawyer stirring up trouble and uncover long running systemic corruption and cover up within the church. It’s an investigation that would have implications right across the globe.
Right from the outset, Spotlight looks like a great film. It’s economic script has a frugality which, in the beginning at least, makes it difficult to get a bead on precisely what is going on and who is doing what to whom but, rest easy, all the pieces of the puzzle will be laid on the table in the end.
The film is unsurprisingly and necessarily dialogue driven but it’s never tedious, being a gripping experience from beginning to end. In this age of the immediacy of the 24hr news cycle and diminishing news media revenue, the film highlights the importance of investing in investigative journalism and the important role this plays in our society.
But more than that, the film bravely asserts that outing wrongs in society is a responsibility of us all and that when it comes to child abuse in the church, we all failed; failed to read the signs and, in some small way at least, failed to act upon them.
Ultimately, Spotlight is a refreshing movie that accepts that it’s audience possesses the requisite intelligence to keep up and serves as a prescient reminder to keep our eyes open to the wrongs that occur in the shadows around us.
Stuart Jamieson
www.spotlightthefilm.com
