**** (out of ****)
Tom McCarthy's "Spotlight" (2015) was released at a time when there was great scrutiny - from the political left and right - regarding the media and its bias. It might explain why I initially was lukewarm in my evaluation of the film. "Spotlight, which I believed, followed the wrong story, was a film that wanted to turn the press (newspaper reporters) into heroes. The reporters were the great defenders of truth, the societal watchdogs that the media so often proclaims they are.
Unfortunately, defenders of "Spotlight" minimized its scope declaring triumphantly the film was a showcase for the importance of the media. In his Chicago Sun-Times review critic Richard Roeper wrote "it's one of the best movies I've ever seen about the art and science of newspaper reporting". Fellow Chicago "movie critic", Michael Phillips, in his Chicago Tribune review, opined "This one makes you believe in the mission, and the value a few journalists can bring to a society." While Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern hailed it, "a celebration of investigative reporting". With all making the comparison to "All the President's Men" (1976), the great film with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman about the reporting of the Watergate scandal. It would seem these "newspaper men" were more than eager to pat their profession on the back.
"Spotlight" works best however as a moral study into our individual responsibility to remain complacent, denying the truth from being heard. Despite the film revolving around a group of Boston Globe reporters uncovering a Catholic church sex scandal, "Spotlight" is about what happens when institutions - be it the church or the media - fail us. And that failure is not due to ignorance or incompetency. It is the result of a systematic effort to not challenge the status quo.
Beginning in 1976, "Spotlight" opens in a Boston police station where a priest has been detained for child molestation. A church higher-up sits in another room with the mother of the child, as it is explained to her the priest will be sent to another parish. We hear two police officers relieved there isn't an army of reporters asking questions. Only one reporter, from a smaller paper, made some noise and was dismissed. The sequence implies the police, the D.A.'s office, and the church were all working in unison. To interfere with the church in Boston was tantamount to career suicide.
The film then jumps ahead to 2001, inside the Boston Globe newsroom. We learn there is a new editor-in-chief, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), an outsider who has worked at newspapers in New York and Miami. There is almost an immediate sense of tension. The newspaper business is in decline. The internet is cutting into readership. Editors Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton) and Ben Bradlee (John Slattery) have concerns this may lead to cuts in the paper's staff.
Robinson is the editor of a small team of investigator reporters within the paper - Sacha (Rachael McAdams), Mike (Mark Ruffalo), and Matt (Brian d'Arcy) - known for their long term investigating pieces under the name Spotlight. Marty would like the team to run a piece on the Boston Archdiocese, as a follow-up to an opinion column the paper has published. Why does the new editor want to look into the Catholic church? What's his agenda? Doesn't he know the Boston Globes' readership is 53% Catholic? Does it have anything to do with the fact Marty isn't from Boston and doesn't understand the ways of the city? Could it be because Marty is a Jew he wants to take down the Catholic church? This is what the audience is supposed to pick up on as many are hesitant to upset the church.
What initiates a newspaper to track down stories? Who makes the decision constituting what is "news"? Does the news outlet have an agenda? Murky answers to these type of questions explains why the church was able to cover-up this scandal as long as it did. Through the course of "Spotlight" we come to find out there was ample opportunity for the Boston Globe to crack open this scandal nearly a decade prior. But someone, for whatever reason (s), decided to sit on the story. Minimal reporting was done on the topic, just barely enough for the paper to sufficiently cover its ass - Hey we wrote a half page story on this and put it on page 53. What more do you want from us!
This atmosphere creates a lively portrait of a city and its innerworkings. "Spotlight" makes us believe in these characters and feels as if it is providing us with an insider's understanding of a city, much like Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River" (2003) or Ben Affleck's "The Town" (2010), both of which take place in Boston. There is an emphasis on "Boston roots" running throughout the film. In one scene Sacha almost apologizes for being from Ohio, only to redeem herself by saying her mother was from Boston. Mike says he is from east Boston, but an attorney, Mitchell (Stanley Tucci) doubts him. He doesn't "sound" like he is from that part of the city, while the attorney himself admits, his family is Armenian. Robinson is the beloved son however. This is all meant to invoke a sense of a small town community. Like "Cheers" this is a place where everyone knows your name. There is an unspoken bond where trust is only given to fellow Bostonians.
To capitalize on this the powers that be might be able to manipulate Robinson by playing on his Boston pride. Why follow direction from the paper's outsider Jewish editor? Who knows how long Marty will have the job. But Robinson has Boston in his blood. He'll be left behind and will have to live among the people he and his reporting have hurt.
The Oscar winning screenplay, written by Josh Singer and McCarthy, also find ways to link Boston roots to Catholic upbringing. It isn't just the Boston Globe readership that is Catholic but so too are the reporters, though some describe themselves as "lapse Catholics". There is a stirring scene between Mike and Sacha as they discuss how the investigation is changing their view of the church. Sacha, who would attend church with her grandmother, has stopped going, while Mike, who claims to have liked going to church as a child, thought one day he would find the church again. Knowing what he knows now, he realizes he could never. It brings about an interesting dynamic involving knowledge versus faith. Can we still have blind faith, after we learn of the church's cover-up? How do you undo knowledge? Or would our faith cause us to turn a blind eye to bad behavior?
While much is accomplished by the film's screenplay it is also the acting that contributes to the film's success. The terrific ensemble cements the perception of family. We almost feel as if these characters really don't have to speak in order to understand each other. We can pick up on the subtle gestures and veiled threats implied even among smaller characters portrayed by Paul Guilfoyle and Jamey Sheridan. Pay attention to a scene between Guilfoyle and Keaton's characters sharing a drink at a bar.
And yet there is still a part of me that believes my initial reaction to "Spotlight" was correct. It followed the wrong story. The heroes in the film aren't the reporters but the survivors who were willing to share their stories. As well as the insiders who had dealings with the church and tried to leak information to the press, to no avail. These individuals risked their careers. The reporters on the other hand would have simply been doing their job. It becomes an act of redemption for the reporters.
Some of the most emotional scenes involve the reporters listening to the stories of the victims. But there aren't enough of these scenes. I never felt I got an accurate understanding of the full scope of this scandal and the specifics on how the church handled the situations. Because the film followed the reporters too closely. Perhaps only in a documentary format can we fully comprehend the church's cover-up and the trauma experienced by the victims.
The film ends with the publication of the story just after Christmas. The editors think it might be a good idea to have some staff in the office in case anyone reading the article wants to reach to share their stories. Robinson and Matt decide to go into the office as well. They see an empty and quiet newsroom on the main floor. The phone is not ringing off the hook. When they walk towards the Spotlight section, they can't keep up with the calls. And so Robinson and Matt pitch in. To me this implies reporters can't take a victory lap. There's no time for congratulations. There are many more stories to tell and corruption to expose. Implying the diligent work reporters do.
"Spotlight" earned six Academy Award nominations - including among them for the performances given by McAdams and Ruffalo - and won best picture and best original screenplay. It also picked up three Golden Globe nominations and various Film Critic awards. Rex Reed, of the New York Observer, Joe Morgenstern, and Michael Phillips called it the best movie of the year in their annual top ten lists. New York Times critics Stephen Holden and A.O. Scott placed it on their top ten lists, as did Richard Roeper among many other "movie critics".
A lot of that praise is justified, although my personal favorite film of that year was "The Big Short" (2015). "Spotlight" is not a perfect film. I wish it would have tackled its subject matter head on. But it is what happens in the background of the story that I found most interesting - uncovering how the city works, the relationships between all of these institutions and the various pressures applied, the media's moral responsibility and lack of action...etc. and the wonderful acting, especially by Michael Keaton, too bad he didn't get an Oscar nomination. He scored a one-two knock-out punch with back-to-back excellent performances here and in "The Founder" (2016).
I was wrong about "Spotlight", this is one of the best films of 2015.
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