Movie Review : Spotlight

By John Cousins
The Aucklander
June 22, 2016

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/aucklander/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503372&objectid=11661331

Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Brian d'Arcy James, Michael Keaton and John Slattery in Spotlight. Photo / Kerry Hayes

The gritty realism of double Academy award winning movie Spotlight is a reminder of what can be achieved when the writers, director and cast stay resolutely true to the ideals of storytelling.

Spotlight would have failed the emotional test if it had succumbed to over dramatising the true story of how Boston reporters revealed the shocking extent of sexual abuse by priests.

Instead, the sure hand of co-writer and director Tom McCarthy delivered a gut-churning cinematic tour-de-force in which the grown-up victims of the sordid sexual predilections of priests helped grafting reporters from The Boston Globe's Spotlight team to lift the lid.

Everywhere in Spotlight are glimpses of pathos and human frailty, balanced against the determination of the church's hierarchy and their civilian allies to keep the sins of priests institutionalised.

Filmed very much in the matter-of-fact spirit of All the President's Men - the story of the Watergate scandal that toppled Richard Nixon - the irony of Spotlight was that the callous hand of the cardinal in the cover-up did not see him disgraced by the church when the scale of the monstrous truth was revealed.

This was the film's final hammer blow, revealing a religious institution led by men loyal only to themselves and whose moral compass was deficient where it mattered most - the innocents.

The deliciously underplayed roles of the journalists was led by quietly determined editor in chief Martin Baron (Liev Schreiber). His arrival at The Globe set the tone for the film, prodding the Spotlight team led by "Robbie" Robinson (Michael Keaton) to delve into a story that had already been widely reported on a priest-by-priest basis but never pushed much beyond that.

In a strange sort of way, the mounting tension was despite the portrayal of the workaday world that is journalism.

The film succeeded because it did not succumb to stereotypes of amped up editors and hard-drinking reporters. It simply showed a care-worn society overlaid by a compelling and riveting story.