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| Edited By: Bryan Durham |Source: DNA |Updated: Feb 19, 2016, 09:15 PM IST
Film: Spotlight
Director: Tom McCarthy
Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Liev Schreiber, Rachel McAdams, Stanley Tucci
Rating: ****
This is the story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation undertaken by the Boston Globe to bring to light the sexual abuse of young children by Catholic priests in the city and how the newspaper's reporters discovered a decade-long cover-up by the city's most powerful people.
The story opens with the paper's investigative section—Spotlight—working a local angle on an ongoing story involving the city's police department. The arrival of a new editor brings with it several questions about his agenda and such. Especially so, when he suggests they drop everything they're doing to follow up on a dead case.
The more the team investigates, the more muck they find. The more the secrets spill out, the more they're astonished how something this big could have escaped everyone. They struggle with the far-reaching implications that the breaking of such a story might have and the film highlights the kind of legwork that goes into investigating such a story.
As a journalist, one feels a certain authenticity has been maintained. Mark Ruffalo's hunger for a good story in particular is something I've seen quite often in the newsrooms I've been a part of over the years, and one can relate to the kind of journalism one sees in this film. Their dilemmas and struggles are as relevant then and resonate just as much now as they did then. Sure, the way we consume news may have changed, but this film shows that ethics still exist and that there is no substitute for dedicated legwork in the pursuit of a story.
There's always a steady undercurrent of implied violence. Like you can feel it simmering just below the surface waiting to bubble to the surface. But it never does. While such a story is enough to rile you up into an activist mood, it rarely goes the whole hog. It almost feels like a play or an episode of a TV show and very little like a feature film. McCarthy seems to be running a tight ship and it almost feels stiff at places.
Forget the flaws. This film deserves to be watched solely for the performances by the ensemble cast and for daring to telling a tale of courage and the pursuit of truth, no matter what the consequences.
