SPOTLIGHT: Wiping the Moral Scum, Clean

Photo by Script Magazine

Set in 2001 at Boston, Massachusetts, this film by Tom McCarthy takes ground to possibly one of the most controversial corollaries of the Catholic Church: child molestation and abuse.

The movie opens with Boston Globe’s first Jewish editor, Marty Baron, wanting to make the paper more essential to its readers. He does this by digging up on the Geoghan Case, where a priest had molested kids in six different parishes over the last thirty years; and Cardinal Law, the cardinal at the time, knew about it and hadn’t made a peep. This, for him, was a story worth telling.

With him being an out – of – towner and of a different faith, it was obvious why he could be explicitly blunt in such an ordeal. The editor of the Spotlight, Walter “Robby” Robinson, on the other hand, was shaky on his feet. Boston was a city in which Catholicism was a way of life, and such expose, in his words, was as good as suing the Church. Nevertheless, their team, as led by Robby Robinson with journalists: Mike Rezendes, Sacha Pfeiffer, and Matt Carroll, went on to investigate. Their ordeal started when they discovered that this was not an abuse done by a single priest to a handful number of children; rather it was a degradation of countless innocent victims by ninety priests ----- in their city alone.

Although this film was majorly a concoction of journalists bashing phone calls, edging through interrogations and, ruffling through dusty, old newspaper clippings; never did it ever border on the mundane. Thanks to Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy’s brilliant writing skills, crisp tensions were accordingly ushered into place. They were never pretentious or coerced, so much so you get so engrossed in the movie that it all feels real ------- which, as matter of fact, it was. The actors portrayed each role so intently that you are able to empathize with each one, without prejudice, protagonist or antagonist alike.

The strongest performance was that of Mark Ruffalo (who played Mike Rezendes). He was consistent even in the wrangling circus of the courthouse, or the scenes where he was in disheartening interviews with the victims. How he portrayed a reporter who was, professionally supposed to be distant, yet was woefully invested in his story ------- was flawless. Ruffalo, however, was at his best when he ultimately had an outburst of long – suppressed emotions during their team’s deliberation of whether to finally bring out their heavy artillery or not. It was moving, and, in all honesty, was all the heavy drama the movie ever gave despite numerous attempts.

This film was indeed writhe in melancholic cinematography, ingenious acting, and an overall compelling storyline; however, Director McCarthy was careful not to cross the line. It is true that the film was genuine and authentic in its desire to adhere justice, but it all just feels rather impersonal. The film didn’t point with a single finger, rather it also espoused on how the Boston community was a complicit in an unspoken crime. As Attorney Garabedian (Armenian and also an outsider) has said in utter defeat, “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.” 
Apparently, the Globe and other major houses such as The Metro, already had a hold of such complaints and had substantial records for a verdict many years ago. If not for an outsider such as Marty Baron himself, this moral scum never would have been cleaned out. Ignorance wasn’t the enemy, indifference was.