Spotlight (film)

''Spotlight'' is a 2015 American biographical drama film directed by Tom McCarthy and written by McCarthy and Josh Singer. The film follows ''The Boston Globe'' "Spotlight" team, the oldest continuously operating newspaper investigative journalist unit in the United States, and its investigation into cases of widespread and systemic child sex abuse in the Boston area by numerous Roman Catholic priests. Although the plot was original, it is loosely based on a series of stories by the ''Spotlight'' team that earned ''The Globe'' the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. The film features an ensemble cast including Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, and Stanley Tucci, with Brian d'Arcy James, Liev Schreiber, and Billy Crudup in supporting roles.

''Spotlight'' was shown in the Out of Competition section of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival and the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. It was released on November 6, 2015, by Open Road Films and grossed $98 million worldwide. It received widespread critical praise, with critics lauding the performances of the cast, historical accuracy and screenplay; it won numerous guilds' and critics' association awards, and was named one of the best films of 2015 by various publications. ''Spotlight'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with Best Original Screenplay, from six total nominations, making it the first Best Picture winner since '' The Greatest Show on Earth'' (1952) to win only one other Oscar. The film also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Plot

In 1976, at a Boston Police station, two policemen discuss the arrest of Fr. John Geoghan for child molestation. A high-ranking cleric talks to the mother of the children. An assistant district attorney then enters the precinct and tells the policemen not to let the press learn what has happened. The arrest is not publicized and Geoghan is released.

In 2001, Marty Baron, the new managing editor of ''The Boston Globe'', meets Walter "Robby" Robinson, the editor of the newspaper's "Spotlight" investigative team. After Baron reads a ''Globe'' article about a lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, charging that Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston, knew about Geoghan's sexual abuse of children and did nothing to stop it, Baron urges the Spotlight team to investigate. Journalist Michael Rezendes contacts Garabedian, who initially declines to be interviewed. Though he is told not to, Rezendes reveals that he is on the Spotlight team and convinces Garabedian to talk.

Initially believing that they are following the story of one priest who was moved to new assignments several times, the Spotlight team begin to uncover a pattern of sexual abuse by other priests in Massachusetts and an ongoing cover-up by the Boston Archdiocese. Through Phil Saviano, who heads the victims' rights group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the team is led to widen their search to thirteen priests. Richard Sipe, a former priest who worked to rehabilitate sexually abusive priests, tells them that his studies suggest that there are approximately 90 abusive priests in Boston (6% of priests). Through their research, the team develops a list of 87 names and begin to find victims to back up their suspicions.

As the team realizes the sheer scale of the investigation, it begins to take a toll on their lives: reporter Matt Carroll learns one of the priest rehabilitation centers is on the same block as his family's home but cannot tell his children or his neighbors to avoid spoiling the story; reporter Sacha Pfeiffer finds herself unable to attend church with her grandmother; Rezendes pushes to get the story out quickly to prevent further abuse; and Robinson faces pushback from some of his close friends who he learns were complicit in covering up the abuse.

When the September 11 attacks occur, the team is forced to de-prioritize the story. They regain momentum when Rezendes learns from Garabedian that there are publicly available documents that confirm Cardinal Law was made aware of the abuse and ignored it. Although Rezendes argues vociferously to run the story immediately, before more victims suffer and rival newspapers publish comparable articles, Robinson steadfastly refuses, arguing the team needs to research further so that the systemic problem can be more fully exposed. After the ''Globe'' wins a case to have even more legal documents unsealed that provide the evidence of that larger picture, the Spotlight team finally begins to write the story and plan to publish their findings in early 2002.

As they are about to go to print, Robinson admits that he learned during the investigation that he was sent a list of 20 sexually abusive priests by lawyer Eric MacLeish in 1993, on which Robinson never followed up. Baron still commends Robinson and the Spotlight team's efforts to expose the crimes now. The story goes to print with a weblink to the documents that expose Law's inaction and a phone number for victims of abusive priests. The next morning, the team is inundated with calls from victims coming forward to tell their stories.

A textual epilogue notes that Law resigned in December 2002 and was eventually promoted to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, and presents a list of 105 U.S. communities and 101 others around the world where major scandals involving abuse by priests have taken place.

Cast

Spotlight team

* Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes
* Michael Keaton as Walter "Robby" Robinson
* Rachel McAdams as Sacha Pfeiffer
* Brian d'Arcy James as Matt Carroll

Globe leadership

* Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron
* John Slattery as Ben Bradlee Jr.

Additional characters

* Stanley Tucci as Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney representing victims of sexual abuse
* Gene Amoroso as Stephen Kurkjian, ''Boston Globe'' general investigative reporter
* Jamey Sheridan as Jim Sullivan, an attorney representing the Church
* Billy Crudup as Eric MacLeish, an attorney representing victims of sexual abuse
* Maureen Keiller as Eileen McNamara, ''Boston Globe'' columnist
* Richard Jenkins as Richard Sipe, psychotherapist (telephone voice, uncredited)
* Paul Guilfoyle as Peter Conley
* Len Cariou as Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston
* Neal Huff as Phil Saviano of SNAP
* Michael Countryman as Richard Gilman, publisher of the ''Boston Globe''
* Michael Cyril Creighton as Joe Crowley
* Laurie Heineman as Judge Constance Sweeney
* David Fraser as John Albano
* Tim Progosh as Principal Bill Kemeza
* Jimmy LeBlanc as Patrick McSorley

Production

Writing

The film was written by Tom McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer. When McCarthy was asked how he and his co-author tackled the research and writing process, he said:

As I said, I passed urned down the filmthe first time! That's probably some indication of how intimidating it was. But I think, as always, with any big assignment, once you get over that initial shock and awe of how much material there was to cover, you start digging into the material and become really fascinated by and engaged with it, and we did. And yeah, it was a lot of work, but it was exciting work. It was really interesting work, parsing through details of not just the investigation, but its findings, and trying to determine what was most helpful in telling our story. I think having two brains on it was somewhat helpful too, because we could talk through it a lot. So it wasn't just sitting alone in a room and jotting notes. We were dialoguing a lot about it. That particular collaboration did feel investigative and on some level, seemed to parallel some of the collaboration of the reporters in that investigation. So, I think there was something about our collaboration that made that initial process more palatable on some level.

Development

McCarthy and Singer completed the script in June 2013. It was on the 2013 Black List of unproduced screenplays. Singer told ''Creative Screenwriting'' that one of his goals for the film was to highlight the power of journalism, which he feels has been waning. He explained, "This story isn't about exposing the Catholic Church. We were not on some mission to rattle people's faith. In fact, Tom came from a Catholic family. The motive was to tell the story accurately while showing the power of the newsroom—something that's largely disappeared today. This story is important. Journalism is important, and there is a deeper message in the story."

Filming

Principal photography began on September 24, 2014, in Boston, Massachusetts, and continued in October in Hamilton, Ontario. Filming took place at Fenway Park, the then-current ''Boston Globe'' offices in Dorchester, Boston, the Boston Public Library, and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The film's editor Tom McArdle said of the post-production process, "We edited for eight months. We just wanted to keep refining the film. We cut out five scenes plus some segments of other scenes. Often we would just cut out a line or two to make a scene a little tighter." The Boston Police station depicted in the opening scene was filmed in Toronto at the former Toronto Police Service 11 Division station at 209 Mavety Street, and the former Sears building on Islington Avenue in Toronto was converted into a replica of the interior of the old ''Boston Globe'', where the bulk of the filming took place.

Historical accuracy

The visual blog '' Information is Beautiful'' deduced that, while taking creative license into account, the film was 76.2% accurate when compared to real-life events, summarizing that "the only conceits are scenes of power figures warning off the journalists".
* The film only depicts the events leading up to the publication of the Spotlight team's first article, whereas the team actually continued publishing follow-up reports for nearly two years afterward. As a result, certain events are depicted as having happened earlier than they actually did, including the scene where former priest Ronald H. Paquin freely admits to molesting children and having been molested himself.
* While Sacha Pfeiffer did indeed write the numerous follow-up reports on Paquin, the interview depicted in the film was a blend of two interviews conducted by her and Steve Kurkjian, both of which took place about a month after the events in the film. After the first story was published, Kurkjian rejoined the Spotlight team (he had been a founding member before becoming the ''Globe'''s Washington bureau chief) to assist with further reporting on the abuses. Pfeiffer and Kurkjian have said that the confession was a much more gradual process and Paquin did not just "blurt it out" the way he does in the film.
* A scene where Matt Carroll discovers one of the priest treatment centers is down the block from where he lives is based on an actual discovery he made during the investigation, with one minor detail changed: Carroll actually lived down the street from John Geoghan, the priest whose case sparked the investigations. This was changed as the filmmakers thought the image of Carroll putting Geoghan's photo on his refrigerator to warn his children would seem unrealistic.
* In a subplot, Eric MacLeish claims he sent a list of 20 priests to the ''Globe'' in 1993 but the story was buried in Metro: Robinson later admits he was the editor for Metro at the time and he likely overlooked the case. While the ''Globe'' did publish an article about the list of 20 priests, the Spotlight team did not learn this during their investigation. MacLeish himself revealed the article's existence while being interviewed for the screenplay by McCarthy and Singer. This revelation, along with Robinson's response to the filmmakers' inquiry, was incorporated into the screenplay for dramatic purposes.

Release

The film "premiered to sustained applause" at the Venice Film Festival and the audience "erupted in laughter" when the film reported that following the events in the film Cardinal Bernard Law was reassigned to a senior position of honor in Rome. It had a limited release on November 6, 2015, with its U.S. release scheduled for three weeks later on November 25.

Home media

''Spotlight'' was released by Universal Studios Home Entertainment on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on February 23, 2016.

Reception

Box office

''Spotlight'' grossed $45.1 million in the United States and Canada and $53.2 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $98.3 million, against a production budget of $20 million. ''The Hollywood Reporter'' calculated the film made a net profit of up to $10 million.

In the opening weekend of its limited release, the film grossed $295,009 from five theaters ($59,002 average), one of the highest per-screen averages of any release of 2015. The film grossed $4.4 million in the first weekend during its wide release, finishing 8th at the box office.

Critical response

''Spotlight'' received critical acclaim. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 97% based on 376 reviews, with an average rating of 8.80/10. The website's summary of the critical consensus is that "''Spotlight'' gracefully handles the lurid details of its fact-based story while resisting the temptation to lionize its heroes, resulting in a drama that honors the audience as well as its real-life subjects." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 93 out of 100, based on 45 critics, indicating "universal acclaim."

'' Variety''s Justin Chang called the film "a superbly controlled and engrossingly detailed account of the ''Boston Globe''s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the widespread pedophilia scandals and subsequent cover-ups within the Catholic Church." Joe Morgenstern of ''The Wall Street Journal'' wrote, "To turn a spotlight fittingly on ''Spotlight'', it's the year's best movie so far, and a rarity among countless dramatizations that claim to be based on actual events." Mark Kermode of ''The Guardian'' gave it 4 out of 5 stars and praised Ruffalo's performance, writing, "As for Mark Ruffalo, he's the closest thing this ensemble cast has to a star turn, a long-suppressed outburst of emotion providing one of the film's few grandstanding showstoppers." Helen O'Hara of ''Empire'' gave the movie 4 out of 5 stars and called it a "grown-up film about serious people that mercifully escapes any awards-grabbing platitudes" and "more thrilling than most action movies." Richard Propes of ''The Independent Critic'' gave ''Spotlight'' 4 out of 4 marks and praised the screenplay and cast: "''Spotlight'' is a nearly perfect example of what happens when the perfect filmmaker works with the perfect script and acquires the perfect cast and crew to bring a story to life".

At the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, ''Spotlight'' finished third in the audience balloting for the People's Choice Award.

Comparing ''Spotlight'' to '' The Post'', a similar period film about journalists, critic Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com expressed perplexity over critics' muted praise for the latter film, writing that in terms of direction, ''Spotlight'' "got praise for doing a tenth of what nowiki/>Steven_Spielberg.html" ;"title="Steven_Spielberg.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Steven Spielberg">nowiki/>Steven Spielberg">Steven_Spielberg.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Steven Spielberg">nowiki/>Steven Spielbergdoes here".

Top ten lists

''Spotlight'' was included on many critics' top-ten lists.

* 1st – Peter Travers, ''Rolling Stone''
* 1st – Christoper Orr, ''The Atlantic''
* 1st – Bill Goodykoontz, ''Arizona Republic''
* 1st – Lou Lumenick, ''New York Post''
* 1st – Rex Reed, ''New York Observer''
* 1st – Ty Burr, ''Boston Globe''
* 1st – Michael Phillips, ''Chicago Tribune''
* 1st – Stephanie Zacharek, ''Time''
* 1st – Ann Hornaday, ''The Washington Post''
* 1st – Kate Erbland, ''Indiewire''
* 1st – Joe Morgenstern, ''Wall Street Journal''
* 2nd – Peter Debruge, '' Variety''
* 2nd – Christy Lemire, ''RogerEbert.com''
* 3rd – Scott Feinberg, ''The Hollywood Reporter''
* 3rd – Rene Rodriguez, ''Miami Herald''
* 3rd – James Berardinelli, ''Reelviews''
* 3rd – Richard Lawson, ''Vanity Fair''
* 3rd – J.R. Jones, ''Chicago Reader''
* 3rd – A.O. Scott and Stephen Holden, ''The New York Times''
* 4th – Jake Coyle, ''Associated Press''
* 4th – Connie Ogle, ''Miami Herald

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases