Spotlight (2015) | Film Review

There are several ways to review a film. Take the more celebrated route – breaking the film down to artistic wins and losses – or take the opportunity to offer a more personal approach and discuss the film and its themes. The central topic, what it means, why it’s important. “Spotlight” is not a perfect film – there are a few orchestrated moments that don’t quite gel and some of the connections can be troublesome for Joe Public to follow – but it IS a perfect opportunity to see what film can do for the human condition. This story is important.

“Spotlight” is pretty straight-forward: A team of reporters (Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, and Brian d’Arcy James) for the Boston Globe are tasked with bringing the story of the Catholic Church’s covering up numerous sex scandals to light. In a city where religion trumps the rule-of-law, this was one of the largest stories of this century. The city doesn’t want it, the church doesn’t want it, and most of the rest of The Globe doesn’t want it. Yet this gang of driven investigators are determined that this story needs to see the light of day, no matter the outcome.

The acting is flawless. Keaton, Ruffalo, and Liev Schreiber (as Globe editor, Marty Baron, who started this ball rolling) all deserve to be in the Oscar conversation this year. The rest of the cast (including Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup, and John Slattery) all stand-out. As individuals, as well as an ensemble, everything works.

Artistic merits aside, see “Spotlight” not for sheer entertainment, but for what it is trying to say. We’ve all seen movies like “All the President’s Men”, where the press is shown to wield that giant ‘spotlight’ on controversial issues, lighting a fire where others would walk away. What we haven’t seen is why they matter today. Why should we even care?

Look around you, and news has become a bastion of generic entertainment. There is nothing breaking, no monopolies crashing down because one beat reporter refused to give up on his story. Kardashians, anger combined with fleeting outrage, and of course political rhetoric – that’s all there is to our news today, and we are all to blame. Every single one of us. It appears more and more that scandals are bought and paid for, swept under the rug and replaced with sensationalistic news that repeats more often than “A Christmas Story” through the month of December. We click, they repeat. It’s a vicious cycle of complacency.

“Spotlight” is important because it reminds us what news SHOULD deliver. It brings to life that a global corporation buried their own scandals – and make no mistake, the Catholic Church is the very definition of corporation at this point – not to mention this same church harbored known sexual predators, and they did so under the guise of the very thing that is meant to bring us all comfort and solace: Faith.

These reporters, these men and women brought up in a city that places the Catholic Church on an altar even if their own beliefs have waned, they risked everything to bring this story to life. Friends and family – both personal and professional relationships – all were laid on the line in order to follow every lead, track down every source, and let the public know that the system they believe so dearly in, that they devoted their very lives to, was complicit in the sexual abuse of children. Dozens of priests, hundreds of children.

Director Tom McCarthy tells his story from the reporter’s viewpoint, yet he does the one thing rarely done in films like these: He demonstrates the complete destruction these horrendous acts bring. The damage to a person’s psyche, the eternal mistrust, the shame. McCarthy holds strong and allows the very detailed accounts to flow, not to manipulate our heartstrings, but to let it sink in what these allegations really mean. By the final credits, my own emotions were wrung out, and all I wanted was a justice so furious even God himself could not fathom it.

I will not break down every nook and cranny of this film. It doesn’t matter how strong the lighting is or if every shot is carefully framed. What matters is the importance of a film like “Spotlight”. To remind us all we should never take things at face value, our hearts should always search for the truth, and most importantly – we need the news. We need real investigative journalism to shine a light on the despicableness flourishing in the world today.

Without it, we’re all just one step away from President Kanye. You don’t want that, do you?

Aaron Peterson
The Hollywood Outsider