A Boston Globe investigative team uncovers sexual abuse and misconduct in the Catholic Archdiocese that rocked Boston back in 2001.

Rating: 7/10 (27 November 2015)

"What do you know?" It's a simple question that is asked nonchalantly in the beginning of the film, but a question that holds heavy over us as we begin to question who knows what. In 2001, the Boston Globe began a piece on the countless uncovered molestation cases within the local Catholic Archdiocese. Using the papers Spotlight investigative team, the Globe would go on to expose and reveal the immense corruption that riddled the churches, rocking the foundation of the entire Catholic community. Heading the Spotlight team is Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton), who with fellow journalists Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian d'Arcy Robinson) begin unfolding the layers of sexual abuse that have gone ignored and unheeded for almost thirty years. Director Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent) creates a meditative film with dark roots that builds up a steady pulse, knowing when to pace itself as to keep from exhausting its subject matter. The offices of the Boston Globe lay thick with a soft, pastel hue that hearkens a commonality within the paper, prominently citing the latest Red Sox game with no real focus on journalistic content. It's a view that runs parallel to the Catholic Churches flippant behavior, tossing aside anything paramount that might disrupt the nature of things. Howard Shore (A History of Violence) works to emphasize the immediacy within each scene, as he creates what becomes background noise; it's a score that glides rather than soars, which is exactly what our focus needs. We witness what is only important to the story, to what's being investigated as we follow in front of our journalists; when they move the story we move.
Unwrapping each layer of the investigation brings a different shade to the Spotlight team, with the sympathetic core stemming from Mark Ruffalo's Mike, who presses matters with an urgent and motivated hand that stands out amongst saltine performances from the rest of the Spotlight team. Ruffalo makes Mike his own, embodying a demeanor and emotion that helps shed light into the heart of the scandals while fidgeting and insisting his way around the city. There's a sense of flaccidness that permeates within the remaining Spotlight team, as findings are read and reports are exclaimed, though the only sense is urgency and necessity. The pace is urgent thanks in part to Tom McArdle (Station Agent), who never quite rests on a scene too long before cutting to the streets, then back to the office. It's an arrangement that spotlights the necessity of bringing this scandal to light, but along the way refuses to shine much focus on the grief, a choice that is both mindful of its perpetrators yet neglectful of its victims. Spotlight is a small film posturing as something bigger, highlighting a momentous period in journalism and the Catholic community that can't quite reach the pinnacle of cinematic storytelling, leaving us knowing a lot yet feeling little.