The best of film of the year will likely not be regarded by the public as such. It does not end with triumphant music. It does not crescendo with the protagonists learning a lesson. Boy doesn’t meet girl. Love does not conquer all. The audience will not walk out feeling warm and fuzzy.
Rather, you will be more inclined to walk out of the year’s best film feeling sick to your stomach. At least, that’s how I felt walking out of Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight – a film that explores the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the child molestation cover-up that rocked the Boston Catholic Archdiocese in 2001/2002.
A journalism procedural on the same level as All the President’s Men – and that is no exaggeration – Spotlight is so meticulously and thoroughly crafted that the I felt as if I were in every interview session late-night rendezvous and editorial meeting with the Spotlight crew.
But who or what exactly is the Spotlight team? In the world of the film, they are an adept team of investigative reporters for the Globe that dedicate months on end to diving deep into the most important issues in Boston.
Perhaps the greatest strength of the film is that the cast works like a true ensemble – each piece of the machine functions in tandem. Each member also serves as a different sort of conduit into the inner-workings of Spotlight.
Michael Keaton is superb as Walter “Robby” Robinson – the weathered and self-described “player/coach” of Spotlight. Robinson provides the audience with the ability to see the investigation from the necessarily skeptical eyes of a seasoned news professional.
Mark Ruffalo is Mike Rezendes, the fiery reporter who would eventually write the first in a set of nearly 600 stories involving pedophilic Boston priests. Rezendes represents the audience’s passion. As the information begins to mount, Rezendes’s disgust matches that of the audience.
Rachel McAdams does great work as Sacha Pfeiffer. According to the film, Pfeiffer is a valuable and intimate interviewer who is responsible for getting key quotes from victims and lawyers. She also has some of the most interesting moments reflecting on just how big an influence the Catholic Church has on Boston and its inhabitants.
Brian d’Arcy James has the maybe the least amount of screen time as Matt Carroll, but has one of the most human and relatable arcs that is so well-performed and scripted that I dare not describe more for fear of spoiling it.
Key supporting characters in juicy roles also include Liev Schreiber and John Slattery as Marty Baron and Ben Bradlee Jr., respectively. Both are pivotal to the investigation’s inception and development. Neither drift into caricature of grumpy news editors, rather they are always pushing for the good of the story and only have doubts when any reasonable human would.
Billy Crudup, Stanley Tucci and Len Cariou are all very good in their roles as well. There is even a nice audio-only cameo by the great Richard Jenkins. I got chills a few times during the course of this movie.
Having been raised Catholic, much of the rhetoric in this movie rings true: particularly, an inherent fear/awe of the Church and the hush-hush nature of the elephant in the room of pedophilic scandals in recent memory.
Many of the smaller supporting characters interviewed or approached to be interviewed by the Spotlight team shy away from saying what they know about the scandals or even addressing that these events happened.
They dodge the topic, calling it unpleasant or that it’s not their place to discuss what happened. I remember similar sort of discussions happening in my religion classes in middle school and high school whenever the topic would be brought up.
Generally, the teachers in many situations would not deny these events, but would always try to move the subject along to something else. The shame and guilt around these cases are real, but are seldom addressed.
But make no mistake, you need not have been raised Catholic to be deeply disturbed or moved by this film. McCarthy’s great strength as a co-writer – Josh Singer is the other screenwriter – and director is that very little technique or plot contrivances get in the way of the story.
The only style to be found here is in the chilly color palette that inhabits the entire film and casts a dismal pall for over two hours. You will not be cheering at the end of Spotlight. You will not be uplifted. But you will be glad that there are people like the Spotlight crew out there, even if they only exist because of the other terrible things provoking their investigations.
Quentin Tarantino once said something in the spirit that audiences are lucky if we get one great film a year. By my estimation, Spotlight is that great film and anything else that’s good will be gravy.
Brian Laughran
Editor-in-Chief