Interesting But Not Engaging

Rating: 6/10 (25 February 2016)

'Spotlight' is a good film but it doesn't go beyond just "good" because it is interesting but not very engaging.
The film adopts a straight-to-the-point approach to telling the story of The Boston Globe's investigation into the cover-up of multiple incidents of child abuse within the Catholic Church. This is a good way of recounting real life events but not the best way to make a film that engages and resonates with an audience.
The biggest problem I have with this approach is that it neglects the development of the characters. And I don't just mean character development, in which characters change or learn something over the course of a story. I mean characters that are well rounded and engaging in some way. None of the characters stood out to me. I missed most of their names so I just referred to them in my head by their actors' names. My lack of investment in the film made the ending feel anti-climatic. From a logical point of view, it isn't, but there was nothing really substantial to hook me in and feel the arc of the story.
The actors all do a fine job by their way. My favourite scenes were the ones in which the members of the Spotlight team interact with survivors of these abuse cases. The actors who played the two survivors (Neal Huff and Michael Cyril Creighton) were believable and made me invested in their scenes. It's possible that my lack of familiarity with them helped sell those scenes but they were well suited and made an impression either way.
In at least one review, the visual style has been compared to that of a TV drama, and I can understand why this comparison was made. Tom McCarthy's directorial decisions seem to be based mostly on capturing the actors instead of making the film more engrossing. The directing is still good, but it doesn't do anything to balance out the flat characters. The generic music that felt too bland for a theatrical feature also didn't help matters.
Overall, 'Spotlight' is a good film that stands out mostly due to its cast and subject matter. I wouldn't really recommend it unless you find the topic interesting or you already want to see this film.
You can read more of my reviews at: http://letterboxd.com/lloyd_morgan/films/reviews/