A fully deserved Oscar winner

Rating: 10/10 (4 October 2016)

It's not often I follow the Oscars or go out of my way to see Oscar-winning films, because they're usually not to my taste. However, I can make an exception for SPOTLIGHT, a film which looked fantastic from the trailer and what I had read about it. Having just caught up with it and watched it twice in a row, I can report that this is an excellent piece of film-making: dark, harrowing, and grimly realistic, but also thoroughly entertaining with it.
It tells the true story of the Boston Globe newspaper's exposure of child abusing priests from the Catholic Church. The viewer follows the story from the rumours at the outset to the very real and grounded information that comes through and the final publishing of the story. There are lots of quieter moments and some eye-popping twists and turns, usually when the scale of the abuse is exposed. I know the subject of paedophilia in film is very distasteful, but this film is more about the crusading journalist team than the subject matter itself. In that way it harks back to classics like ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, although Fincher's ZODIAC is also a reference point.
The calibre of this film is excellent and everything about it is very strong from the cinematography to the direction. Despite the lengthy running time, this is a fast-paced feature in which no scene lasts more than a couple of minutes. It takes you on a roller-coaster ride of fact-checking, breakthroughs, and battles against both a conspiracy of silence and the American legal system. The acting is excellent across the board, which is a surprise in some cases (Rachel McAdams) and expected in others (Ruffalo equals and surpasses his performance in ZODIAC). Michael Keaton also delivers one of his best performances and puts the old memories of a rubbery Batman far behind him. SPOTLIGHT is a real gem.