Spotlight (Movie Review by Bob Racine)

2 hrs & 9 min, color, 2015

                                     

The World Book Dictionary gives four very direct, precise and crisp definitions of the word “scandal”.  The first covers the most ground, indicating source: “A shameful action, condition, or event that brings disgrace or offends public opinion”.  The second is in reference to effect: “damage to reputation; disgrace”.  The third indicates the means by which it is transmitted: “public talk that will hurt. . .reputation”.  And the fourth is the most specific of all: “discredit to religion caused by irreligious conduct or moral lapse.”  Aside from reputation, religion itself or a basic standard of morality widely respected is defamed by blatant wrongdoing.

                                     

The scandal that has descended upon the Catholic Church over widespread sexual abuse of children by ordained clergy fits each and every one of these shades of definition.  The action of the priests has created a “condition” that public opinion has caught up with.  The Church’s reputation has been irrevocably tainted by this disgraceful and, as it turns out, commonplace behavior.  It has unleashed a public outrage that has taken the form of unrelenting comment and discussion to which every citizen of the world has been privy; it has by now passed the point of rumor.  And it almost goes without saying that religious scruple and basic standards of decency shared by all civilized nations have been discredited.  Some scandals have been so localized and have involved so few individuals and institutions that over a meager period of time they pass from the public memory.  But this one is not likely to succumb to that fate. 

                                     

For that unlikelihood we have a team of four journalists from the Boston Globe to thank.  They wore out layers of figurative and maybe literal shoe leather between 2001 and 2002 tracking down the evidence from many documented sources to expose this insidious and clandestine practice on the part of a staggering array of priests. The team is called Spotlight, a specialized group who are given the license to spend as much time – months and years if necessary – completing a crucial and complicated investigation on a high voltage story. 

                                     

Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian d’Arcy James portray this devoted quartet of inquiring minds, and Liev Schreiber is the managing editor who incites the team to take on the subject.  All of them do excellent work bringing these contributing individuals to vivid life, and Stanley Tucci gives a well restrained but acute portrayal of a lawyer for victims who for years has been probing for justice and cautiously warms up to what the Globe is planning.  There are no lead players; what we have is an ensemble cast; everyone is a supporting player, but they perform together brilliantly.  Tom McCarthy directed the film and along with Josh Singer knocked out the extraordinary screenplay.  He has come forth with an excellently modulated production that spares no essential detail and gives an objective account of both the issue and the tireless labor.  

                                     

We should appreciate, however, that these journalists are not portrayed as white knight crusaders.  It has to be faced by the newspaper staff that they had had clues pointing toward the sickness years before and had not acted upon them.  There are arguments, struggles of conscience and world weariness that they have to contend with in the course of their time-consuming work.

                                     

What memories do I carry away from my two viewings?  I will never rub from my mind the voices of victims recounting the experience of being molested and raped by clergymen whom they trusted as a child of eleven or twelve.  It is one thing for us to be told the nature of the priests’ behavior; it is something far more shocking and heartbreaking to hear one of them report the intricate step-by-step details of it.  None of the ones we hear from are able to get through their stories without sobbing.  I have been brought to tears by many films in my lifetime, but the ones I shed while hearing these conversations reached a primal level in my inner child that was almost paralyzing.  My eyes water up as I write these words. 

                                     

And I credit McCarthy for not smoothing them over; the reporters taking down the explicit details are dogged as they have to be but compassionate.  How grateful we should be that no reenactments were attempted; that would have been a cruel exploitation. What is spoken straight to camera is more than adequate.  One of these victims told about how he was “groomed” for the seduction.  No one it seems was grabbed and forcibly pinned down and painfully assaulted.  They were trapped by their own innocent assumption of the adult priest’s authority and by the cunning of the priest with whom they had dressed altars and from whom they had taken Communion.  All of these bit players who portray the victims do a magnificent job of getting under the character’s skin.  It makes us wonder if they themselves are actual victims hired off the street for the filming.   

                                     

What else will I be unable to forget?  In one scene a suspected priest, already retired, is contacted, who promptly admits that he “fooled around with” kids but claims he never actually raped anyone.  How so?  Because he got no pleasure from it!  A rape is only the genuine article if the rapist gets pleasure out of it!  This pitiful man does not take into account the experience of the kid being abused, only how he the adult was affected.  Heaven help us!

                                     

I will also not forget the culture of secrecy that surrounded the phenomenon – guilty priests being shuttled around from parish to parish without consequences and left free to commit the same crime all over again in each parish with impunity.  The reporters run smack up against walls of resistance that block their path at every turn, not just on the part of the Church but city officials and courts that seal off offending documents.  The team even uncovers collusion on the part of an Archbishop!  In one scene we hear the remark that it takes a village to raise a child and takes no less of a village to abuse one.      

                                     

I will also remember the rationale that was used in an attempt to dissuade the Globe journalists from continuing with their mission.  The city of Boston must be protected from unfavorable publicity and since the Church is deeply intertwined with the common life of that city, having allegedly done wonders for it, that sacrosanct body must be granted immunity from any kind of prosecution.  Schreiber’s managing editor as it so happens is Jewish, and the unkindest and most condescending cut delivered in the course of the film is the Archbishop making him a gift of the Catechism upon his arrival on the job.  Because the man was not considered a true Bostonian, everyone in high places figured he would not last and that upon his departure presumably the scandal would be avoided.  They were in for a huge surprise!

                                     

And finally, I will remember what we are told in the closing credits.  We are left at the very end with a long, long list of the localities worldwide where child abuse by priests has since been uncovered.  It is mind blowing.  

                                     

“Spotlight” takes its place among the very finest of movie docudramas (“The Insider” and “All the President’s Men” otherwise leading the pack for me).  Like its predecessors it does not sacrifice vital issues to the easy manipulation of fact for the sake of excessive “dramatic effect”.  And it is thorough!  It just might be the greatest movie about journalism ever made.  I say maybe; time will tell!

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.