Spotlight (M). Director: Tom McCarthy. Starring: Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber. 129 minutes
When word first circulated a few years ago of a new film chronicling the 2001-2002 Boston Globe investigation into sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church, I think most expected something along the lines of a scathing excoriation. More than 13 years after that story broke, as cases and cover-ups continue to be revealed (and perpetrated), you can hardly say such an approach wouldn't be warranted. Mainstream Hollywood is also not generally known for painting with a delicate brush.
But Spotlight, released in the US last October (and in Australia this week) and now an Academy Award nominee, forgoes the predictable and the preachy in favour of a quiet, nuanced story hard to turn away from. The set-up: Globe Spotlight editor Walter 'Robby' Robinson (Michael Keaton) runs a small team of investigative reporters given complete independence; they follow the stories they think worthy of in-depth coverage, and print only when they're ready.
Until, that is, new editor-in-chief Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) asks them to look into the case of Father John Geoghan, who was being accused of sexually assaulting a child. None of the team — played by Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian d'Arcy James — want to take the story: Boston's an Irish Catholic enclave; to cross then-Cardinal Bernard Law was to find yourself at odds with not only him but most of the city's important people.
Plus, the team wonders whether there's really a story there, not knowing that they would discover not only that Geoghan alone had abused more than 80 children, but that he was just the tip of the iceberg.
It's within the expanse between what the Globe reporters know and what we have learned since that Spotlight finds so much drama. As in the classic '70s film All the President's Men, we take the journey into truth with them, watching as each new piece of knowledge quietly deepens their shock and, eventually, horror. Whether they began the story as Catholics or not, by its end each of them is changed, as is the world in which they live.
Today we continue to experience the ripples of those revelations. And yet watching Spotlight what most strikes me is how very early days it all still is. Yes, in many dioceses there are stronger child protection standards now in place; certainly the Vatican now