Spotlight
"I know there's things you cannot tell people. But I also know there's a story here people will hear about it." -Mike Rezendes
The historical drama Spotlight is directed by Tom McCarthy and stars Mark Ruffalo as Mike Rezendes, Michael Keaton as Walter 'Robby' Robinson, Rachel McAdams as Sacha Pfeiffer, Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron, John Slattery as Ben Bradlee Jr., Brian d'Arcy James as Matt Carroll, and Stanley Tucci as Mitchell Garabedian.
^A damn good looking cast!^
Spotlight centers around a team of four journalists, during 2001 and 2002, at The Boston Globe known as the spotlight team consisting of Robby (the leader of the team), Mike Rezendes, Sacha Pfeiffer, and Matt Carroll. The spotlight team basically gets a story that they've been working on and investigating on the front page of the newspaper, thus being the spotlight of the paper. In the film Spotlight, the Boston Globe has just gotten a new editor-in-chief Marty Baron. He feels as though one of the paper's old stories about the Catholic Church's allegations of molesting children could be a big story. He assigns the spotlight team to investigate and run it. While investigating the Church's files and interviewing the survivors of these atrocities, the four journalists discover that these incidents have been happening for many years now being hidden by the Church and the law. They discovered around 90 priests have been molesting children and after the news went public, accounts from all over the world were released. As you can probably guess, the Roman Catholic Church suffered severe backlash (and for good reason).
^Michael Keaton's thoughts: "That's f***ing gross, man."^
The worst part of this whole plot (and the reason I pretty much said what happens in the end) was that this all happened! The Catholic Church did in fact cover up a bunch of files that said countless priests molested children and got away with it. The law even helped them get away with it, which suggests that the Roman Catholic Church has an immense amount of power. This sickens me and I couldn't have been more glad that this movie is out in wide release. Not many people realize the risk that the journalists who covered this story took. It took guts and skill to get a high powered group who controls almost everything and bring them to it's knees.
^C'mon guys. Be happy! You're about to reveal a major religion's dark secret.^
I will say that Spotlight has really won me over as one of the year's best films so far and I am sure that it will receive multiple awards at the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, the SAG awards, and much more. The reason I truly believe this is because this movie was intense. The writing and dialogue was on point to what the plot was about. I mean this in the way that when you see an animated movie about a boy and his dog going on wacky adventures, you see that there's a lot of color and a lot of slapstick humor (most of the time). When you see Spotlight, the writing and how people say it is so disgusting that it makes you cringe and want to throw up. I will go on note and say that some of the victims who were molested by priests go into vivid detail in how they were molested. I definitely won't be saying what they said or even paraphrasing, it's foul and grim. On a happier note, the whole star-studded cast was a major component of Spotlight's execution of dialogue. This especially was seen by Mark Ruffalo whose performance was absolutely phenomenal. His portrayal of the everyday good guy who wants to do right by the people (where you can really overdramatize the character) was great. I loved the entire cast as well including Michael Keaton. You can't not love that guy.
^"They knew and they let it happen! It could've been you, it could've been me, it could've been any of us." I love this line.^
Apart from making me feel angry at people who do these things to kids, I felt very engaged with the story as well. I realize that Spotlight isn't the kind of film for everyone (especially not kids), but I take a chance with it. There's no fast paced fist fighting action or any CGI robots that are about to assassinate the president, but it's a story that is being told with such passion for informing people about this event. Which is why I can definitely recommend it to people with a strong stomach and film lovers in general. I can also recommend it to everyone else, but just be cautious in what the film is about and who you're taking. Spotlight is an absolute powerhouse that sheds light to a subject matter that we are all afraid to really talk about.
Pro
Pro
- Performances compliment the writing beautifully (though the subject is sickening)
- A much needed behind-the-scenes film on Roman Catholic Church scandal
- Engaging as can be
- Dialogue may be too dark and depressing
4.9/5
Spotlight is rated R for some language including sexual references
Spotlight is in select theaters now
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