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Award season is a great time for true stories—the more scandalous, the better. So it’s really no surprise that the real-life scandal of director Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight is making some serious award season waves. Of course, having an award-worthy ensemble cast doesn’t hurt, either.
Spotlight tells the true story of the Boston Globe’s investigation into the Catholic Church’s child molestation scandal. Led by veteran reporter Robby Robinson (Michael Keaton) and encouraged by the Globe’s new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), the paper’s Spotlight team digs deeper into the latest molestation claims. As they interview victims and fight for access to court-sealed documents, they face opposition and obstacles as they uncover decades of crimes and cover-ups that involved not only high-level church officials but also lawyers, judges, police officers, and even the papers themselves.
Spotlight takes a horrifying true story and turns it into a thought-provoking and gripping drama. We all know the outcome, but each step of the process building up to that outcome—each obstacle, each interview, each development—adds something new and devastating to the story. This is so much more than just a journalism drama—because the people involved managed to uncover something that had woven its way into so many different institutions: churches, schools, courts, and more. It digs deep into an issue that was so significant and so substantial, yet it was protected by an even bigger cover-up. And the scope of it all makes the story all the more earth-shattering—even now, years later.
The story revolves around a fascinating group of characters—and a talented ensemble cast. From Keaton as the team’s fearless leader to Mark Ruffalo as the intense and passionate reporter who’s so eager to do his job that he runs everywhere instead of walks, each cast member plays a different role in the investigation, and each brings a different perspective to the story. Granted, there are a lot of characters to keep track of—a lot of contacts and sources and victims—and it can be rather challenging to keep them all straight. But while you may sometimes get some of the minor characters confused, that won’t take away from the drama and suspense of this smart and challenging film.
Spotlight is as difficult and heartbreaking as it is well-written and skillfully acted. And though the result may not be surprising, the story is told in a way that makes it a tense and captivating drama—the kind that will leave you as shaken and speechless as you were when you first heard about the story years ago.
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