Past the Punchline

Rating: 8/10 (7 December 2015)

When Stanley Kubrick was asked what he thought of the Holocaust epic "Schindler's List", he responded "Schindler's List is not the story of 6 million Jews who died; it's the story of 600 Jews who didn't." You can't tell the story of millions or even thousands of victims in a single picture. Schindler's List took a sample that acted as a small consolation for the largest atrocity of the last century. Likewise, the largest religious scandal of the last century can't be told in a single story. Spotlight takes a similar approach to subject matter of this scale and limits the scope to a single but crucial city, Boston.
There isn't much of this story that isn't common knowledge by now. More than a notable scar on the Church's legacy, it has been diluted to a punchline for comedy writers for the last decade. What we never realized is how compelling the inception of this story was. At the Boston Globe in 2000 a 30 year-old division of the paper called Spotlight was dealing with budget cuts, reader dropout and huge competition with the internet as a medium. Fresh blood was pumped into the organization by way of a new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Shreiber). In any fictional story this new Jewish editor at a dominantly Catholic media outlet would cause an unnecessary amount of drama to the conflict. As is true at real newspapers, employees don't respond emotionally to even huge changes, they've seen it all before. This new producer is greeted with passivity and few misgivings. His first meeting with the head of Spotlight (Michael Keaton), comes with a suggestion that would be easy to misconstrue as a personal agenda, look into the local Catholic Church's sexual abuse cases. The rest of Keaton's team Mike (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha (Rachael McAdams), and Matt (Brian James) make little fuss over this suggestion and begin professionally.
The authenticity of the dynamic between these journalists shouldn't be taken for granted. There is enthusiasm in their work, but how it develops into personal passion in the subject matter is kept in check for a growing emotional effect. Journalists grow a thick skin for horrible subjects. Breaks in this story chip away at their impartial involvement until the impact on their hometown becomes too large to cope with. It is hard to dramatize children recounting their tales of sexual abuse. What is harder yet is seeing the end result, decades after the fact. Victims, now adults, remain victims for the rest of their lives. Few have adjusted successfully to their lives with this boulder on their shoulders, and the journalists take on the burden of looking under the stones. What they find implicates more than the church.
This film has the luxury of portraying a truly impartial account of these developments. Backing up the integrity of these characters is complimented with a remarkable pacing that doesn't turn an important account formulaic. The cast was not given a platform for Oscar- worthy range, but Mark Ruffalo exaggerated ticks and physical mannerisms into distractions that luckily made everyone else seam more disciplined. McAdams, James and Keaton connect the Boston Globe to the personal implications of the city. Their past apathy in the name of keeping the peace extends blame beyond the church into a ripple effect that leaves few definitively innocent bystanders. It is now 15 years later and if this film is making a case for anything it's that the legacy of shedding light on shame shouldn't dim due to guilt. This legacy is a burden that can't be carried by a punchline alone.