A resistant Boston archdiocese that covered up a massive scandal of pedophilia among its priesthood is confronted by a crack Boston Globe team of investigative reporters in the excellent Spotlight. Among the obstacles the journalists face is a 53 percent Catholic readership who, along with the courts, were for many years manipulated into looking the other way. All is not glory for the reporters, however. Their esteemed newspaper was also guilty of burying the initial story. Their bang-up Pulitzer-prize winning investigation uncovered 70 priests and more than 1,000 victims.
Spotlight succeeds on many fronts. Not least it thrillingly captures the immense amount of work and initiative involved in a long-range investigative report. Colorful, highly believable characters leap off the screen. Spearheaded by its leader Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton in surely an Oscar-level performance), the Spotlight team (Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Brian d’Arcy James) is assigned the troublesome case by their soft-spoken new editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) on his first day on the job. An outsider, Baron is not from Boston but is also “an unmarried man of the Jewish faith who hates baseball,” as one reporter says.
They soon encounter a victims’ attorney (Billy Cruddup), who quietly settled many cases with the archdiocese but won’t talk about it. When reporter Michael Rezendes (Ruffalo) looks up a victims’ attorney of an entirely different stripe, the eccentric Mitchell Garabedian (a riveting Stanley Tucci), the investigation quickly escalates. Robby’s immediate boss, Ben Bradlee, Jr. (John Slattery) fights his own skepticism about the investigation but ultimately supports his crew. When the Spotlight team after many months wants to finally run the story, Baron squelches their impulse. Let’s wait and go big, he says. Let’s get Cardinal Bernard Law himself for masterminding the cover-up.
If writer/director Tom McCarthy (The Visitor, The Station Agent, Win Win) and co-writer Josh Singer have presented one false note in this film, I certainly couldn’t find it. Their casting and scripting of interviewed victims prompts empathy with these poor souls’ initial reluctance to talk about their pasts. No shopworn flashbacks or other melodramatic devices are used.
Spotlight impressively presents the bittersweet dilemma of absolute power corrupting absolutely. It’s truly a wonder the Spotlight reporters succeed in uncovering many stories of untold grief and just as powerful ones of oppressive cover-ups. The film’s stirring coda reminds us the problems presented here were by no means exclusive to Boston. Priests, rather than fired, were typically relocated only to allow their crimes to be repeated.
Interestingly, the lawyers who buried the scandal aren’t portrayed as upfront scoundrels but instead as professionals with a built-in ability to cloud over their conscience. Predominant is the theme that lawyer/client privilege prevents their fessing up. If not for persistent journalists, it is clear none would have done so.
Which brings up the final sadness this great film presents. The events of Spotlight took place in 2002. Since then, countless layoffs have nearly decimated the newspaper business. Investigative teams like Spotlight are vastly fewer in numbers and smaller in scope. And that is a crime as big as the ones portrayed here.