A Powerful Story That Will Anger Those Who Watch It

Rating: 10/10 (2 September 2018)

This is a difficult movie to watch - a movie that will make you truly angry, even if you aren't Catholic. It details the work of a group of investigative reporters with the Boston Globe in the late 1990's and early 2000's to expose the sexual abuse scandals of the Roman Catholic Church in Boston. Now, today, we hear so much about the sexual abuse of minors by priests that I fear we've become hardened to it. It doesn't seem to shock us anymore. But at that time most of this was unknown to most people - covered up by Church officials who just kept moving pedophile priests from parish to parish and settling with abuse victims out of court to protect the image of the church; used by lawyers who presumably made a comfortable living off the negotiated settlements; swept under the carpet by officials ranging from police officers to judges who turned their eyes away because they were Catholic themselves; ignored or minimized by the media when stories did leak out. It's a story about an out of control institution and the power of the Roman Catholic Church - not a wild eyed conspiracy type of story, but a raw, down to earth story about what was (and is) essentially a conspiracy to try to get the Church off the hook for the abuse committed by its clergy. This is a powerful story that makes you shake your head in disgust and contempt.
The movie opens with a brief account of an abused boy in 1976, and a visit by Cardinal Bernard Law to his family to work something out so that nothing goes public. So we're exposed right away to the fact that the Church cared more about itself and its reputation than about its victims. Then we jump into the story of the journalistic investigation. The strong suggestion of the movie is that none of this might have come out except for the fact that in early 2001 the Globe hired a new editor - Marty Baron (played by Liev Schrieber.) Baron was not from Boston. Baron was not Catholic. Baron was not Christian - he was Jewish. Basically, he had no stake in covering this up and so he demanded that his investigative team plow ahead with its work, with the goal being not just to find individual cases of abuse but to find out what the systemic problem was and how far up the hierarchy it went. Michael Keaton played the head of the "Spotlight" team - a team of Globe reporters who work solely on investigative journalism - ably supported by Mark Ruffalo, Brian D'Arcy James and Rachel McAdams as the team. The performances were superb, but this movie really isn't about the performances. It's about the story itself. You really didn't need well known names for this - the story drives the movie forward, as the scandal grows and grows - cover up after cover up. From a handful of priests involved to 13, to 90 all the way up the hierarchy of the archdiocese itself until it finally reaches the door of Cardinal Law himself (played by Len Cariou.) Many of the victims are found and interviewed. Some of their stories, while not incredibly graphic, are still sickening. And the movie ends with a huge list of places in the United States and around the world where sex abuse scandals have hit the Roman Catholic Church.
The story proceeds both slowly and deliberately - and provides a fair bit of detail into the investigation. In that sense it's also an interesting look at investigative journalism. But in the end it leaves you angry. I am a Christian and I am clergy - not Roman Catholic but Protestant and married with a daughter, but this still hits home even if I'm not part of that tradition. It is horrifying and outrageous. The abuse of the trust that parents placed in these priests only to have that trust abused in the worst possible way is shocking. I firmly believe that the vast majority of Roman Catholic priests are fine and faithful men who do not and would never abuse children. And the problem of abuse of trust is not restricted to the Roman Catholic Church by any means. But this story and the many, many scandals that have erupted since do point to a systemic problem in the Roman Catholic Church that seems to be out of control, and a larger than would be expected number of pedophiles within the priesthood.
It is truly difficult to find anything much to criticize about this. It's a first rate, well done movie that sadly remains entirely relevant and will probably remain relevant for some time to come. (10/10)