What could I say after watching Spotlight? That was the question that I had for myself when I returned from the theatre yesterday at midnight, sitting down at the keyboard to write the review. The thoughts and emotions were so prevalent that I needed to get them out, but all I could do was just stare at the blank document and wonder. What was worse about humanity? The people who commit evil acts, or those who know about them and cover them up?
To be sure, watching Spotlight is no easy task, as it tells the story of a team of investigative journalists who worked for the Boston Globe and exposed systemic child molestation and cover ups in the Catholic Church. It was difficult watching scenes where the team interviewed survivors of sexual predators, and it was equally difficult seeing scenes where the journalists deal with the weight of what they were uncovering.
What is remarkable with a film like this, or Ryan Cooler's Fruitvale Station, is the ability to take a true story where the outcome is known and still be able to take the audience through the story and leave them feeling new emotions when the end credits role. This is thanks to both Spotlight's screenplay (penned by Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy) and the directing stills of McCarthy. We are brought into a very real world, which makes the emotional punches much more powerful and difficult to bare.
One thing that Singer and McCarthy do well is to keep the story clean, ridding it of anything that would be otherwise thrown in to make the leads more well rounded and shining. We almost never see them outside of their working environment, and only get small visions of what their home lives are like. The story is about their job, and the toll that it takes as well as their determination to tell the full tale of what is happening within the Catholic Church, and by keeping the script lean every shot and scene brings strength to the narrative. This aspect felt similar to Anton Corbijn's A Most Wanted Man. There will be times where I cry out that I want to know more about characters, who they are, and revelations about the different aspects of their lives, but there are also times when what we learn needs to be specific, and this is one of those times.
Assisting the great directing script is one of the best ensemble performances I have seen in a long time, perhaps since last year's Birdman. The two hour and nine minute film puts on display the full abilities in subtlety and nuance of talents Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber (possibly the best performance of his career), and Stanley Tucci. Through each of their roles we gain an understanding of the humanity involved in searching for a dark truth. They are all vulnerable at times, and all portray flaws and faults that are believable to their characters.
It really is a technically brilliant piece of work. The set designs are such that you feel like you are sitting in the actual locations where the story started breaking. While it nails all the points of what a movie should be from the physical side, it is the emotions that it leaves the audience with that is the true magic of the movie. It is not all sunshine and lollipops in this film. It's content is dark, and the characters are believable, thus the feelings we are dragged through can be draining, painful, and haunting. I doubt that I will ever be seeing this movie again, but be sure to know that I am glad that I sat through it as I learned more about a true story and got a different glimpse into humanity.
Rating - 4 out of 4 stars
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