A horrifying story, very well told

Rating: 9/10 (24 February 2016)

The new editor of the Boston Globe sets the 4-strong investigative team from the paper's Spotlight feature investigating the molestation of young children by Roman Catholic priests, and the extent to which the hierarchy of the church was aware of it. The investigation is not popular with the Church which, in Catholic Boston, is a powerful organisation. But if a story is there to be uncovered...
Let me start by saying that what the team discovers – including even the way the press was happy to leave things hidden – is both astonishing and disturbing. Having said that, let's move on and consider how the film conveys this story.
Clearly presented as a drama, there is almost a documentary feel to how the movie lays out the relevant key points as the story of the investigation (this doesn't always work: the investigation is interrupted by 9/11, yet this has no impact on it of any great significance, and could have been easily written around if the film had been presented as pure drama: as it is, it presents an irrelevant 10-minute detour).
The performances are all low key, and all excellent. The script is quietly efficient with little in the way of verbal pyrotechnics. There is always narrative movement onwards, but not much action in the sense one understands it in movies. And the film is completely gripping from start to finish, both in the mounting horror of what gets discovered, and the relentless way we share the feelings of the reporting team.
This is a worthy contender for the Best Film Oscar.