SPOTLIGHT – The Review

Photo credit: Kerry Hayes/Open Road Films

By Cate Marquis

In a brilliant newspaper drama that evokes ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, SPOTLIGHT recounts the careful, dogged investigative journalism that blew the lid off the pedophile priest sex scandal that is still rocking the Catholic Church today.

Director Tom McCarthy takes the film’s name from the investigative team at the Boston Globe who exposed the sex scandal in 2001. McCarthy co-wrote the script with Josh Singer based strongly on the actual history. Michael Keaton heads up a strong cast in this gripping real-world newsroom drama that is also an excellent detective procedural that delivers realistic drama without sensationalizing.

The story takes place in Boston, a city that has much in common with St. Louis, a heavily-Catholic, red-brick old city built of families, neighborhoods and remembered ethnic roots, a kind of “small town” big city where people often grown up and stay, a place of old families and sharply-divided social classes, and full of traditions. While St. Louisans size people up by where they went to high school, Bostonians use neighborhoods.

Into this parochial atmosphere comes an outsider, the new editor of the Boston Globe, Martin Baron, a taciturn Jewish man lately from the Miami Herald, who could not seem more like a fish out of water than if he had fins. Brilliantly played by Liev Schreiber, the almost opaque new editor wants to tackle a big story right away, and chooses a story that has been kicking around a while, scandal about a priest accused of pedophilia which the church seems to be covering up. Everyone at the paper tells him they have already tried, that the documents are sealed and the investigation will go nowhere but he insists on putting the newspaper’s well-respected investigative journalism team, its Spotlight division led by Walter “Robby” Robinson (Keaton), on the assignment.

They quickly discover there is more than one priest in this scandal and that there seems to be a concerted effort on the part of Church officials to cover it up. What unfolds is both a gripping detective story/mystery tale that takes the team ever deeper down a rabbit hole, and an argument for the power of investigative journalism itself.

SPOTLIGHT delivers first-rate entertainment while never dumbing-down its gritty true story. It carefully builds up its suspense in a deliberate but engrossing way, giving one the feel of being in a real newsroom as big stories are breaking. There is the persistent hard work of research, the reporters hitting the streets to run down leads, dogged pursuit of reluctant sources, and the shock of new discoveries that require quick action.

The cast of characters are part of what makes this film work so well. High caliber acting abounds. Keaton follows up his remarkable performance in last year’s “Birdman” with a totally different but highly effective role here. He plays Robby with the kind of no-nonsense style of the classic newspaper man, the guy who knows everybody and has the connections to find things out. Robby digs for information during golf rounds with a long-time friend (Jamey Sheridan), a lawyer who has handled some of these cases. He also deflects the Church’s P.R. guy (Paul Guilfoyle) when he comes around to try to dissuade him from looking more closely at the cases.

Mark Ruffalo plays an energetic, barely-contained go-getter reporter Mike Rezendes, the member of the Spotlight team who jumps on the story with relish, Ruffalo’s own energy in the role jumps off the screen. The other reporters on the Spotlight team are Rachel McAdams’ persistent, thoughtful Sacha Pfeiffer and Brian d’Arcy James’ well-drawn Matt Carroll. Stanley Tucci is marvelous as a brusque lawyer who is defending many of the victims but seems to have little time for reporters questions. Len Cariou brings a glad-handing friendliness, one that conceals an iron fist, to his portrayal of Boston’s Cardinal Law, who meets with new editor Baron early in the film, cautioning him that it is better if the Church and newspaper work to together in harmony, and ten giving the Jewish editor a copy of the Catholic catechism as an unsubtle hint of who is in charge.

While the film is straightforward about the crimes it is uncovering, SPOTLIGHT avoids any disturbing recreations of those crimes. We have only the victims words, and their tears and anguish, as they recount their experiences. Part of the film’s excellent depth is its willingness to acknowledge that this story was out there a long time, and evidence in plain view, before anyone in the press took it seriously, a kind of cautionary tale in itself.

With taut story telling, outstanding acting and a deep, intelligent script, SPOTLIGHT is a must-see film about what journalism should be and a film that deserves the Oscar nomination it will almost certainly get.

SPOTLIGHT opens in St. Louis on Friday, November, 20, 2015.

OVERALL RATING: 5 OUT OF 5 STARS