What: Spotlight
Directed by: Tom McCarthy
Cast includes: Billy Crudup, Brian
d’Arcy James, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schrieber,
John Slatterly, and Stanley Tucci
Release Date: 28 January
The timing for the release of Spotlight in Australia is extraordinarily apt with the Royal
Commission investigating child abuse in institutions. The film is the a
dramatisation of the moment in time when they systemic pedophilia taking place
in the Catholic Church was publicly uncovered and reported in Boston in 2002 –
and brought into the spotlight.
This is not how the movie gets its name though (or at
least, not entirely). The issue was investigated by a special team working at
the Boston Globe newspaper. This team wrote for a special interest section
called ‘Spotlight’ and they routinely spent significant amounts of time (more
than a year at times) undertaking very deep investigations into major news
items. This was back in the day when newspapers actually reported beyond a 24
hour cycle and editors knew that good reporting sometimes takes time.
Boston is/was a Catholic City predominantly so it took
the arrival of an out of town, Jewish editor (Schrieber) to see the
significance and have the guts to press for the right story. It is suggested in the movie that the editor
he was replacing had suddenly met with an accident after asking some
uncomfortable questions of his own...
The ensemble cast is brilliant in this movie and one of
the reasons it works and the story shines through is because everyone played
their role rather than being an actor playing the role. I should mention this
is not a film which reviles Catholicism as a religion and, in fact, nobody
leaves the church although there are a lot of ‘lapsed’ Catholics in the
investigative team.
The interesting commentary in the film is not about the
pedophilia. What it focuses on is the extent of the problem (an estimated 6% of
the priesthood worldwide), the cover up systemised by the Church, and there
lack of action to protect the congregations. It also touches on the complicity
of the adults in the congregations themselves to protect their Church.
For me Keaton and Schrieber are the ones who take this
film beyond the ordinary. Both actors are known for big, powerful performances,
but in this case their work is nuanced to perfection. Ruffalo is the only one
who feels like he is overplaying a bit, but perhaps the film needed a hot head
to demonstrate that most of the people who were outraged were just normal folk.
Every character has their own journey to belief and
understanding of the truth and it is fascinating to watch awareness and horror
creep into their minds and eyes. McCarthy is telling a story which could fall
into a tedious reportage of reportage, but through this intelligent exploration
of personal epiphanies he magnifies the horror of the situation without making
it spectacle.
The movie is on the long side at just over 2 hours, but
to be honest I didn’t notice. I was engrossed the whole way through.
As I mentioned earlier, we have our own investigation
going on right now and the Catholic Church is still, remarkably, using the same
tactics to avoid culpability. Luckily they have their own nation/state at the
Vatican to protect those most at fault – which is probably why they have been able
to perpetrate the atrocities for so long.
One of the important points the movie makes is that
sometimes it takes an outsider to see what is happening. It is not that Schrieber’s character is
Jewish which is important, it is that he comes from somewhere outside of Boston
and is not a part of the culture which has developed – the not seeing that
becomes ingrained in all social cultures over time.
2016 is shaping up to be a year of great and important
story telling in film. The year began with Suffragette,
now we have Spotlight, and Trumbo is coming up too. It is going to
be an exciting year at the movies.
4.5 Stars
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