Spotlight - What a movie

Rating: 9/10 (1 April 2016)

Cardinal Law: '.A city flourishes when great institutions stand and together.'
Marty Barton: 'Personally I'm of the opinion that for a paper to best perform its function, it really needs to stand alone.'
This really sets the tone for Spotlight, a hard hitting movie about how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal single handed-ly about child molestation within the local Catholic Archdiocese. This is how great stories are told and more importantly this is how true stories are told. The movie is not easy to watch, not even for normal people but especially for children and adults who have gone through series of rapes and molestation by people they trust the most, people who are messengers of God. And the numbers are not small – the list of geographies and states the movie states at the end show you how deeply entrenched this problem is.
The movie does not try to sensationalize this subject, exactly how journalism is supposed to be conducted. It somehow reminded me of Zodiac (2007), a true story which became a great movie. The depth of the research and the portrayal of characters is simply outstanding. I have been reading about the making of this movie and its great that actors like Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton are humble enough to get into their characters and learn from the actual people they are portraying. Just shows the discipline with which some movies are made. Liev Schreiber has a smaller role but he portrays the intensity of the real Marty Barton really solidly – Marty Barton must have had such clarity of thought to believe that it is the system that needs to be addressed, not the individual people who committed these crimes.
It also shows how faith comes crashing down, how painful it is to know that the people you think are the holiest are just as human as anybody else out there. It shows how frightened a society is, especially when it comes to uncovering something that everybody knows about but haven't done a thing about.
Its these small, humanizing factors that makes Spotlight what it is. It is brilliantly directed, the editing is tight and the movie keeps you on edge while dealing with a very sensitive topic. Its got 6 Oscar nominations and I am definitely rooting for Mark Ruffalo. I like the way he can play this puppy-dog-romantic and also act with intensity that really makes you believe in that character.