‘spotlight’ Sticks to the Story

By Don Steinberg
Wall Street Journal
October 28, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/articles/spotlight-sticks-to-the-story-1446054443

Director Tom McCarthy and his fellow screenwriter Josh Singer knew they had a compelling story with “Spotlight.” The trick was turning it into a riveting movie.

In 2001, reporters at the Boston Globe investigated child sexual abuse by area priests and a coverup by the archdiocese. The articles the newspaper published, beginning in January 2002, led to similar revelations around the world.

The filmmakers had broad themes to work with, such as the abuse itself, the inaction of those who knew something was wrong and the importance of local investigative journalism. Nonetheless, these rich subjects could yield a dry, procedural story about a team of reporters embarking on a six-month investigation where breakthroughs emerge from legal filings, interviews and library research. The movie dramatizes the experiences of people who tend to be sticklers for accuracy (lawyers, journalists, victims and accused), at a time when other recent films about contemporary people (like “ Steve Jobs” and Mr. Singer’s earlier screenplay, “The Fifth Estate,” about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks) have been called out for playing with facts to heighten the drama.

“I would be lying to you if I said I wasn’t scared,” Mr. Singer said. He and Mr. McCarthy (who directed and wrote the funny dramas “Win Win” and “The Station Agent”) could have oversimplified or altered the investigation story. Instead, they chose to include many journalists who were part of the project rather than ignore them for the convenience of the movie.

In ‘Spotlight,’ which opens Nov. 6 in Boston, New York and Los Angeles, Mark Ruffalo plays Globe reporter Mike Rezendes. Rachel McAdams and Brian d’Arcy James are reporters Sacha Pfeiffer and Matt Carroll. Michael Keaton is their editor Walter “Robby” Robinson. Liev Schreiber is the paper’s new editor in chief and John Slattery is a deputy managing editor. There also are several lawyers, including Billy Crudup as high-powered litigator Eric MacLeish and Stanley Tucci as the abrasive Mitchell Garabedian.

“Early on I showed the script to some friends of mine who are very good writers and they were like: ‘Can one of those lawyers be a priest? Can you collapse Mike and Matt’s characters?’ ” Mr. Singer said.

“We got a question at a screening: ‘Did you think about having one of the reporters being more in touch with their faith?’ And, sure, we did,” he said. “But none of the reporters were. Imagine if the Mike Rezendes character had a family and he went to Catholic church every Sunday. Isn’t that bigger drama?”

“There’s temptation to make it more sleek,” Mr. McCarthy said. “Some of it is dry, and it is pretty deep material. Ultimately it’s just trusting the story, trying not to sensationalize it or sentimentalize it but just to present it.”

‘Spotlight’ co-writers Josh Singer, left, and Tom McCarthy this month at a screening of the film honoring Michael Keaton at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. PHOTO: JIMI CELESTE/PMC/ASSOCATED PRESS

Messrs. McCarthy and Singer establish cinematic tension in the events leading up to the Globe’s investigation. In mid-2001, Marty Baron (Mr. Schreiber’s character) moves from the Miami Herald to become the paper’s top editor. With an outsider’s eye, he tells the paper’s investigative “Spotlight” team to dig harder on priest-abuse leads, despite warnings that going up against the church might not be a smart move in a city with many tight-knit Catholic neighborhoods.

“You’ve got a guy coming up to take over a paper in a town that’s sort of notoriously, if not insular, then has its own sort of identity,” said Mr. McCarthy, who grew up in New Jersey. “If you’re not from there, you’re not from there. I’m an American Irish-Catholic kid with family from Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I went to Boston College. And I’m still an outsider.”

Early on, Baron meets archdiocese leader Cardinal Bernard Law (Len Cariou), who offers friendly if heavy advice (“I find this city flourishes when its great institutions work together”). The Cardinal gives Baron, who is Jewish, a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a welcome-wagon gift. It sets up a classic conflict, pitting the new gunslinger in town against forces resistant to change.

“The church thinks in centuries. Do you think your paper has the resources to take this on?” Mr. Tucci’s attorney character asks Rezendes before agreeing to help.

“We had some of those built-in story elements but we didn’t want to put too fine a point on those things,” Mr. McCarthy said. “A lot of what the church does they do passively, but it’s so pervasive that it’s undeniable the amount of pressure they can put on institutions and certainly individuals. Some of it was: How do we stay true to that, without having to make them the bad guys, like someone going around picking reporters off?”

Mr. McCarthy cast Michael Keaton as the Spotlight team editor after recalling his portrayal of a dedicated city editor in Ron Howard’s 1994 newsroom drama “The Paper.” Each member of the Spotlight team has a back story. They all are lapsed Catholics but Sacha Pfeiffer worries how the reporting will affect her churchgoing grandmother. Messrs. McCarthy and Singer started with the “Spotlight” articles published in the Globe. During months of research, they interviewed the reporters and editors.

“We would interview each of them about the same moments, to triangulate what happened, 10 or 11 years after the investigation,” Mr. McCarthy said. “Put it sometimes in their words, or our words, or a combination. But always go back to them and make sure: Does this still feel true to the spirit of it? These reporters and editors read almost every draft we threw at them. We always had a reporter on set. We could ask: Would you be reading off your pad in this scene? Would you close your door? Would you use a red pen?”

In set design and wardrobe, the filmmakers treated the movie as a period piece.

“More often than not they’re in their kind of work uniforms,” Mr. McCarthy said. “Which are some form of khaki or jean and an overly pressed shirt. And a jacket always standing by if they have to go to an interview and look a little better.”

“We knew that these characters were compelling, and they would ultimately be the thing that would not only draw the audience into the story, we would end up experiencing the horror of this discovery through those reporters’ and editors’ eyes,” Mr. McCarthy said.

That approach helped with the challenge of turning unspeakable crimes into a movie that doesn’t end on a downbeat note.

“One advantage we had is that we were telling the story of the journalists as opposed to the survivors,” Mr. Singer says. “Because this is tough stuff. I think you can walk away from this movie inspired as opposed to depressed.”

Corrections & Amplifications:

In the movie “Spotlight,” Sacha Pfeiffer worries how the reporting would affect her churchgoing grandmother. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated she worried how the reporting would affect her mother. (October 30, 2015)