"Spotlight"

Title: Spotlight
Director: Tom McCarthy
Writer: Josh Singer, Tom McCarthy
Category: Biography, Drama, History
Duration: 128 min
Rate:

Among the many movies being nominated for an Oscar this year, Spotlight is the film that rightfully deserved the awards for Best Motion Picture and Best Original Screenplay.

Directed by Tom McCarthy, it tells the real life events that involved the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe who uncovered in 2003 the Scandalous case of child sex abuse by the Roman Catholic priests in the Boston Area. The camera follows the endless and tireless efforts that the Spotlight team, the oldest operating newspaper investigative unit in the US, has to go through in order to discover and denounce publicly the horrors made by almost 90 priests, in Boston alone, while using their power to coerce and force themselves on children coming from abusive or careless homes.
Throughout the movie each member of the team is deeply affected by their discoveries, and even though their priority is to divulge the story, they have to fight against a deeply religious community who is ruled by the church itself, who is covering the scandal since the 60's.

As in many biographical drama film, it could be easy to lose focus on the main message in order to favour the fictional aspect of the story to make the movie more appealing to the audience. This is not the case with Spotlight. Tom McCarthy was able to tell this story in the most truthful way by tirelessly following the team in their search for the truth.
The cast ensemble worked together as a well oiled machine to bring to the screen such a powerful story. Liev Schreiber, who plays Marty Baron, shows immediately that he is the leader of the group. He is calm but determine to bring the story to light. He guided the rest of the cast in giving justice to their characters in the same way in which Marty pushed his team to overcome any obstacle on their way to uncover the truth.

Among the spotlight team Mark Ruffalo and his commitment to his character outshines any other performance made by the other actors. Like Mike Rezendes, he was determined to make the audience understand his character's point of view and his need to tell the truth. His powerful monologue towards the end of the film makes it possible for the movie's focal point to come across beautifully, allowing the audience to really understand what Spotlight is really about.

In fact, in this particular movie what is striking is the fact that they wanted to highlight the emotional side of such a horrific event. Throughout the film what is constantly repeated is how devastating a violence by men of God can be. It is not just the physical abuse that destroys the victims, it is the loss of faith that brings them towards addiction or death. More often than not, along the movie, each character describes this feeling of complete disorientation. All the victims talk about the fact that after being abused by their priest, the people they turned to for comfort in time of need, they felt without a purpose. Without trust and faith, they just became a shell of themselves, lost in the dark.

All in all, in an award season that seems filled with movies without a gripping storyline, Spotlight is a great film that tells a real story without glamourising it and it does it brilliantly with the help of a talented cast and great directing.

Till next time,

Fred.

Here's the trailer: