Spotlight review: “One of this year’s most important films”

Spotlight review: While not the strongest of this year’s awards contenders, Spotlight is one of the most important films of all time.

Most films about investigative journalism tell the story about something terrible happening within a respected/liked company/community. But because of what is uncovered within the Catholic Church, Spotlight is going to have a difficult time at the box office, but the film could earn them Oscar gold in return. Spotlight follows The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, a newspaper investigative unit that begins an investigation into the child sex abuse cases in the Boston area that weren’t reported on and covered up for years.

The subject matter that Spotlight is based on is both the film’s strongest point and potential downfall. The discussion of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church by Catholic priests is still allegedly apparent today. Also this film isn’t set too long ago. The years 2001/2002 are still in people’s memories and there will be many who will remember this story breaking out. The subject matter is incredibly difficult and horrible to hear about and this could end up hurting the film. The fact is there are some things that are so horrible; we choose not to listen to it. There isn’t a single person who’s saying, “Let’s go see the film that exposes dozens of Catholic priests as being paedophiles.” Spotlight isn’t a film that you should be excited to go see because of the subject matter. The film isn’t also going to appeal to those of a Catholic faith. While I may not be religious personally, I know this film is going to expose things about the Catholic Church that most Catholics don’t want to know about. Catholics are known to be deeply religious and by seeing Spotlight, they could have their faith shaken to their very core. While saying the Government is bad is one thing, like they do in All The President’s Men, telling people that there is something wrong with the people who uphold your religion is an entirely different issue, an issue too big for most people. The original story obviously didn’t shake too many Catholics because the Catholic Church is still one of the world’s strongest religions, but seeing Spotlight as a Catholic could do you and the film more harm than good.

While everything does point to “Don’t go see this film” regardless of faith, it should be noted how important it is to have a film like this made. I commend the filmmakers, especially director and co-writer Tom McCarthy, for tackling such a sensitive issue and time of Boston’s history. Much like the actual Spotlight team, the filmmakers took a risk to showcase a milestone moment in history that isn’t reported on that much. The film takes the risks to tell people of today how much of a problem child sex abuse was within the Catholic Church during the 20^th century and the turn of the millennium. It’s an important part of history that needs to be told and Spotlight does a fantastic job of exposing that dark past, but you feel that the film could have gone even further. While we saw how the events of child sex abuse affected the victims, depicted wonderfully by the actors playing the victims, we never see how the breaking of the story affected the Catholics in the community. In the film, Rachel McAdams’ character has a Nan who is a deeply religious Catholic and while we see her reading the story at the end of the film, we never see how reading something like that would affect her. It feels at times that the film is afraid to go too far. The film makes some big accusations but they are underlined in the film and it never comes back to it making you wonder why even keep it in the film. Nevertheless though the writing and directing from McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer is very clever. They have helped to truly make the film feel as real as the real life investigation. Following the story along is great and watching everything unravel is a masterpiece to behold. The dialogue feels natural and the overall look is a wonder to see as at no point does the film feel too “Hollywood”, you can tell they wanted to make the film, not for awards, but for the story.

Spotlight contains a fantastic cast of actors, which include Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Liev Schreiber. While the whole cast is great, these four in particular stand out most. Schreiber’s performance as the new editor in chief at The Boston Globe, Marty Baron, is great to watch as we see a man who at first is just trying to make a name for himself but in the end truly cares about the end goal. Not much changes in the way he presents himself but your perception of Marty just changes in an instant. Nothing about the character has changed but the way you see them has, which is done very subtly by Schreiber’s performance. McAdams holds her own as the only real female cast member of the film as Spotlight reporter Sacha Pfeiffer. What’s nice about the character is at no point she is overlooked because she’s only woman on the team. She is a strong and important member of the team and helps to uncover some the bigger truths of the story. McAdams play the role very well and interacts perfectly alongside her other cast members. Keaton plays the leader of the Spotlight team Walter “Robby” Robinson and while Keaton’s performance in Spotlight isn’t as good as he’s performance in Birdman, Keaton does play a man conflicted by his past mistakes to perfection. Robby has made mistakes that are coming back to haunt him but his drive to redeem himself by exposing this truth is great to watch, although you feel like they could have pushed a little bit more with his character. While everyone is great, Mark Ruffalo steals the whole film as determined Spotlight reporter Michael Rezendes. The character’s drive to expose this story is admirable to watch as Michael tries every legal tactic he can to get the results the team sorely needs. Ruffalo’s performance is fantastic to watch as the character’s little mannerisms help to separate him from the rest of the cast and helps make the character more human and relatable. Ruffalo puts in one of the finest performances of his career and will be a dark horse as we fall deeper into awards season.

I will tell you now, Spotlight isn’t the best film out this awards season, but it is definitely the most important. Spotlight shines a light not so much on the darker side of the Catholic Church but more on the investigation. It’s important to showcase the team that fought tooth and nail to expose this story to the public and make a change not just in their local community but also across the world, which it did. At the end of the film, facts about the actual investigation and the aftermath are shown which lead to nearly 300 priests being publicly accused, over a thousand victims being documented over the years in just Boston alone and showed all of the cities in the US and across the globe that uncovered more cover up of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Spotlight doesn’t quite paint the Catholic Church in the best of colours, but it doesn’t condemn the religion as a whole. It exposes the people within the religion who have been doing these horrible things. While the film may not be suited for everyone because of their faith or unwillingness to face the difficult subject matter, Spotlight is one of the most important films to have ever been made and deserves your attention to go see it.

Spotlight review by Sean Narborough, January 2016.

Spotlight is released in UK cinemas on Friday 29th January, 2016.