AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street
Jim McDermott | 27 January 2016
Spotlight (M). Director: Tom McCarthy. Starring: Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber. 129 minutes
When word first circulated a few years ago of a new film chronicling the 2001-2002 Boston Globe investigation into sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church, I think most expected something along the lines of a scathing excoriation. More than 13 years after that story broke, as cases and cover-ups continue to be revealed (and perpetrated), you can hardly say such an approach wouldn’t be warranted. Mainstream Hollywood is also not generally known for painting with a delicate brush.
But Spotlight, released in the US last October (and in Australia this week) and now an Academy Award nominee, forgoes the predictable and the preachy in favour of a quiet, nuanced story hard to turn away from. The set-up: Globe Spotlight editor Walter ‘Robby’ Robinson (Michael Keaton) runs a small team of investigative reporters given complete independence; they follow the stories they think worthy of in-depth coverage, and print only when they’re ready.
Until, that is, new editor-in-chief Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) asks them to look into the case of Father John Geoghan, who was being accused of sexually assaulting a child. None of the team — played by Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian d’Arcy James — want to take the story: Boston’s an Irish Catholic enclave; to cross then-Cardinal Bernard Law was to find yourself at odds with not only him but most of the city’s important people.
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