Sincere and Sensitive

Rating: 9/10 (10 March 2016)

Best thing about Spotlight is that at no point of time during its 120 odd minutes, does it give the impression that you are watching a movie. You just want to lean forward and try to take in what is unraveled thick and fast. You are sucked in and made part of the investigation quartet at Boston Globe. Spotlight, the intrepid inquiry team at Boston Globe, exposes the rampant pedophilia in Catholic Church. Spotlight, the movie, tells us how they pursue this project with single-minded doggedness.
Spotlight is not a very visual film. It takes the plot forward through conversations – brainstorming discussions and one to one interviews, accompanied by quicksilver editing. So convincing and intense are these interviews that you absolutely empathize with the victims. It is also a sort of thriller, sans blood and bodies. The sinister machinations of the Church are chilling to the bone. Though the film limits its exposé to the archdiocese of Boston, it drops a bombshell that the system is rotten right up to the doors of the Pope.
As good as the content of the film, are the performances; oozing with sensitivity and sincerity and utterly credible. It makes you fall in love with newspapers all over again; a huge achievement in this impatient age of social media.