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On January 6, 2002, Boston Globe subscribers picked up their local paper and saw the front page headline: "Church Allowed Abuse by Priest for Years." The story, written by Michael Rezendes, a reporter on the investigative "Spotlight" team, was massive, in word-count and impact, but it was just the beginning. Two more Spotlight stories on the same topic ran that day, with more to follow. The uproar from the Spotlight stories ( The Boston Phoenix , an alternative weekly, had covered church sexual abuse but it didn't have the circulation of the Globe ) was so sustained that by December 2002, Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston, stepped down in disgrace, saying in a statement, " To all those who have suffered from my shortcomings and mistakes I both apologize and from them beg forgiveness. " (Pope John Paul II gave him a position in Rome, where Law remains to this day.) The Spotlight team won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for their reporting. These events are familiar to everyone by now, but those first Spotlight stories are painfully familiar to Boston Catholics (my family is Boston Irish-Catholic), and it was the first news story to dominate everyone's conversations since September 11th only a few months prior. 

Tom McCarthy's superb "Spotlight," co-written by McCarthy and Josh Singer , is the story of that investigation. "Spotlight" is a great newspaper movie of the old-school model, calling up not only obvious comparisons with " All the President's Men " and " Zodiac ," two movies with similar devotion to the sometimes crushingly boring gumshoe part of reportage, but also Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell shouting into adjacent phones in "His Girl Friday." At a late moment in "Spotlight," there's an image of the presses printing off the edition that carries the church abuse story. Such a scene is so de rigueur  in newspaper movies that it borders on cliche, but in "Spotlight" it is a moment of intense emotion. The truth in that edition, the evil it describes, will be a wound in the psyche of millions, but it must come out. 

The Spotlight team is editor Walter "Robby" Robinson ( Michael Keaton ), and three reporters, Michael Rezendes ( Mark Ruffalo ), Sacha Pfeiffer ( Rachel McAdams ), and Matty Carroll (Brian d'Arcy James). John Slattery plays Globe managing deputy editor Ben Bradlee Jr.. All of the reporters are locals, and everyone has some connection to the Catholic Church (referred to as only "The Church"). When a new editor, Marty Baron ( Liev Schreiber ), comes on board, he is perceived as an outsider because he's not from Boston at all (he is first seen boning up on the city by devouring "The Curse of the Bambino.") In an initial meeting with Robby, Baron brings up a recent piece by a Globe columnist about the Boston archdiocese's potentially shady handling of various abuse cases. Baron suggests the story could be perfect for the Spotlight team. Robby hesitates, but Baron gently pushes: " This strikes me as an essential story for a local paper. " It's a great line, and it's so underplayed by Schreiber that you might miss its effectiveness. This goes for his entire performance. Right before the church-abuse edition goes to print, they all meet in Marty's office, and he looks through a hard copy of the story, crossing out words, murmuring to himself, " Adjectives. " That is a newspaper man. 

Holed up in a cluttered basement office, the Spotlight team exhibit the behavior of people who spend more time with one another than they do with their own families. Personal details about their lives are at a minimum. Sacha goes to church every Sunday with her grandmother, a ritual she finds increasingly painful. Rezendes' marriage is on the rocks. Matty has a couple of kids, and a big magnet on his refrigerator emblazoned with an American flag and "Remember 9/11" on it. We know who these people are. 

At first the team focuses on one former priest, John J. Geoghan, alleged to have molested many children years ago. But Baron urges them to remember that the story is bigger than just one "bad apple" priest. He wants to go after the whole system. The corruption is obviously systemic, but the key issue becomes: did Cardinal Law know ? That's the big game Spotlight is after. "The Curse of the Bambino" may have taught Baron about Red Sox Nation, but a meet-and-greet with Cardinal Law (a creepily sincere Len Cariou ) during Baron's first week on the job is even more illuminating. Baron is stunned at Law's assumption that the Boston Globe would work with  the Catholic Church. 

Sacha and Michael question the adult victims willing to come forward, who are so traumatized they can't find the words to describe what was taken from them. A couple of lawyers (played by Billy Crudup and Stanley Tucci ) sit on opposite ends of the spectrum of dealing with the Catholic Church from a legal standpoint. 

McCarthy and his entire team, from production designers to location scouts to extras casting directors, get Boston right. Different neighborhoods (Back Bay, Southie) are used as shorthand for entire worlds. There are clear class divides (predator priests often worked in low-income neighborhoods, targeting boys who needed father figures). The atmosphere is very "Boston": having a beer on the back porch in the dead of winter or arguing about work over hot dogs at Fenway. Boston, with its confusing colonial-era streets and church spires jutting into the sky on practically every corner, is the soul of the movie. "Spotlight" feels  local.

"Spotlight" also shows a deeper truth, the level of psychological trauma brought on by abuse, not just to the victims, but to horrified Catholics everywhere. "Spotlight" takes faith seriously. An ex-priest turned psychiatrist is an important source, and when he's asked how Catholics reconcile the abuse scandal with their faith, he replies, " My faith is in the eternal. I try to separate the two. " Mark Ruffalo modulates his performance over the course of the film at a world-class level, moving from a patient dogged investigator to a rumpled maniac racing through courthouses, chasing down cabs and screaming at his boss. In a raw moment, he confesses to Sacha that even though he stopped going to church years ago, he always assumed that one day he would go back. " I had that in my back pocket ," he says, glancing at her with a flash of anguish. "Spotlight" makes the issue of lost faith visceral by taking the time to let it breathe, letting it play its part in the story.

The newspaper world has changed a lot since 2002. Things look pretty grim. But good long-form journalism still exists (the recent New York Times series about the conditions for nail salon workers is a good example). Such work is as important now as it has ever been. "Spotlight" is the kind of movie where a scene showing a group of reporters huddled over church directories, taking notes in silence, becomes a gripping sequence. (It's reminiscent of the row of mission control guys in " Apollo 13 ," whipping out their slide rules as one, thereby almost single-handedly expanding the concept of heroism.) "Spotlight," with all its pain and urgency, is a pure celebration of journalists doing what they do best.

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O'Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master's in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Spotlight (2015)

Rated R for some language including sexual references.

128 minutes

Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes

Rachel McAdams as Sacha Pfeiffer

Michael Keaton as Walter 'Robby' Robinson

Brian d'Arcy James as Matt Carroll

John Slattery as Ben Bradlee Jr.

Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron

Stanley Tucci as Mitchell Garabedian

Billy Crudup as Eric Macleish

Jamey Sheridan as Jim Sullivan

Len Cariou as Cardinal Law

Paul Guilfoyle as Peter Conley

• Thomas McCarthy
• Josh Singer

Director of Photography

• Masanobu Takayanagi
• Tom McArdle
• Howard Shore

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Spotlight : A Sober Tale of Journalism Done Right

Tom McCarthy’s new film masterfully portrays The Boston Globe ’s uncovering of the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal in 2002.

For much of its running time, Spotlight holds its audience at arm’s length. Its plot follows one of the most upsetting topics conceivable: Child abuse in the Catholic Church, and institutional efforts to cover up the crimes. Tom McCarthy’s film follows investigative reporters at The Boston Globe who helped uncover the story in 2002, and recreates their painstaking process with great attention to detail—the journalists gather information, pester sources, and take notes on first-hand accounts of molestation, but only at the very end of the film does the impact of it all fully hit them, and the viewer.

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Like any good reporting job, Spotlight slowly builds momentum from nothing, gathering disparate bits of information into an emotional juggernaut of a story. But unlike most directors making films about journalists, McCarthy doesn’t indulge in the usual Hollywood claptrap to cast them as flawed superheroes. The central cast isn’t the motley crew of self-destructive drunks and grandstanders you’d usually see—this is a film about the methodical process of reporting, not the stirring heroism behind it, and at the end of the film, it’s the story itself, not the journalists’ personal achievements, that stands triumphant.

McCarthy has never been a visual wizard, and Spotlight lacks much flair in that regard. The film takes place largely in the stodgy offices of The Globe ’s investigative team, and in coffee shops and lawyer’s offices around the city. But the movie returns the director and co-writer (he scripted with Josh Singer) to his greatest area of expertise: characters whose emotional arcs play out almost entirely under the surface. His best films— The Station Agent , The Visitor, and Win Win —told quietly moving stories without leaning on dramatic outbursts. McCarthy’s most recent release, the more whimsical The Cobbler (starring Adam Sandler), was a catastrophe, but Spotlight returns him to solid ground.

The film boasts a fine ensemble: Michael Keaton plays Walter Robinson, the Spotlight team’s venerable editor, who commands the reporters Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) under the eye of their managing editor Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery) and The Globe ’s new editor-in-chief Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), who’s pushed them toward the unenviable task of investigating the diocese in a largely Catholic city.

Each character feels emblematic of a certain recognizable type of journalist without resorting to caricature. There’s Ruffalo’s live-wire agitator who seems disinterested in having a personal life, and Slattery’s hand-wringing deputy advising caution at every turn, and McAdams’s rigorous interviewer who exudes a warmth that gets strangers to spill their darkest stories to her. Keaton is the star, though, continuing the career renaissance that arguably began with his bravura work in last year’s Birdman . There was little subtlety to his last role, but as Robinson, Keaton projects his understated torment over the fact that his team could have tackled the story sooner but subconsciously avoided it.

But this isn’t a film that coasts on the work of its actors, who provide few moments of bombast. Nor is it a stern lecture on the evils of the Church, or the institutional powers that kept the voices of the abused silent for so many years, though it hardly shies away from those subjects. Spotlight instead shows how such a well-orchestrated secret can be uncovered: not through the will of one editor or reporter, but through the combined efforts of a well-run, well-staffed journalistic organ not beholden to moneyed interests, and with enough will to push past any political or social pressures.

Which might make the film sound like a manifesto, but Spotlight ’s lack of polemic makes the message that much clearer. Ironically, on the fifth season of HBO’s The Wire , McCarthy (who also acts from time to time) played a fictional Baltimore Sun reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize by exaggerating his reporting on various city issues. The show’s creator David Simon seemed to be railing against perceived enemies of real journalism by creating this straw-man character, and the story consequently fell flat. But by quietly celebrating the work of The Globe ’s reporters, McCarthy makes a far more consequential argument for the value of smart reporting and robust local newspapers.

There is perhaps a strange timewarp quality to Spotlight : It presents a Boston Globe recently acquired by The New York Times , not yet sweating layoffs and buyouts, as it and so many papers nationwide have weathered in recent years. But McCarthy does well not to turn his story into a larger rant on the state of modern journalism. The journalists’ work speaks for itself, and the film succeeds by letting it stand on those merits.

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By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

There’s no higher compliment to pay this steadily riveting, quietly devastating take on investigative journalism than to say Spotlight gets it right. So did the Spotlight team on The Boston Globe when, in 2002, it published nearly 600 articles on child sex-abuse allegations against Catholic priests and the church cover-ups that followed. The team won a Pulitzer for its scalding exposé. And right now the film is the predictive favorite to win the Best Picture Oscar. But awards are merely icing on a cake whose candles glow in tribute to long-form print journalism, now fading in the digital fog of budget cuts, reduced resources and click-bait news cycles.

Bravo to director Tom McCarthy ( The Station Agent , Win Win , The Visitor ), who wrote the richly detailed script with Josh Singer ( The Fifth Estate ). There’s not an ounce of Hollywood bullshit in it. Our eyes and ears are the Spotlight team, played by exceptional actors who could not be better or more fully committed.

Michael Keaton is in peak form as Spotlight editor Walter “Robby” Robinson, a stickler who is tough on reporters Michael Rezendes ( Mark Ruffalo ) and Sacha Pfeiffer ( Rachel McAdams ) and researcher Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James). Robinson is skeptical that his newspaper, whose readers and staffers are largely Irish-Catholic, can tackle the Boston Archdiocese. Caution also guides Globe deputy managing editor Ben Bradlee Jr. ( John Slattery ), whose father, Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, risked his job on the Watergate coverage.

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The kick in the ass for Spotlight comes from an outsider: Marty Baron (a terrific Liev Schreiber), the paper’s new top editor, a Floridian and the first Jew to call the shots at the Globe . Baron rightfully suspects a conspiracy and turns Spotlight loose. McCarthy and camera wizard Masanobu Takayanagi track the grinding work of real reporting. As Carroll, the excellent James digs into sealed records of priests whose crimes are swept aside. Political, social and legal systems are found complicit, including plaintiffs’ lawyer Eric MacLeish (Billy Crudup) and Cardinal Bernard Law (Len Cariou). McAdams, sharp and sympathetic, shows us how Pfeiffer draws out details from victims whose childhoods meant sucking the dick of a priest who says he’s had a bad day. And Ruffalo is a marvel of purpose as Rezendes hounds attorney Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci) for access to survivors of sex abuse.

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It’s these survivors who give Spotlight its beating heart. Roiling emotions are also felt among reporters who desperately want to get the story right and just as desperately want to get it first. That tension makes for an insanely gripping high-wire act and the year’s most thrilling detective story. These reporters are jittery obsessives who put their lives on hold for a story they believe in. Do they get off on it? You bet. They’re hardcore guardians of an endangered galaxy. And heroes, in my book. At times, it’s hard not to choke up, but Spotlight refuses to wallow in nostalgia. This landmark film takes a clear-eyed look at the digital future and honors the one constant that journalism needs to stay alive and relevant: a fighting spirit.

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Film Review: ‘Spotlight’

Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams play the Boston Globe journalists who shook the Catholic Church to its core in Tom McCarthy's measured and meticulous ensemble drama.

By Justin Chang

Justin Chang

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It’s not often that a director manages to follow his worst film with his best, but even if he weren’t rebounding from “The Cobbler,” Tom McCarthy would have a considerable achievement on his hands with “ Spotlight ,” 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 . Very much in the “All the President’s Men”/“Zodiac” mold of slow-building, quietly gripping journalistic procedurals, this measured and meticulous ensemble drama sifts through a daunting pile of evidence to expose not just the Church’s horrific cycles of abuse and concealment, but also its uniquely privileged position in a society that failed its victims at myriad personal, spiritual and institutional levels. The result may be more sobering and scrupulous than it is cathartic or revelatory, but with its strong narrative drive and fine cast, “Spotlight” should receive more than a fair hearing with smarthouse audiences worldwide.

As with so many movies drawn from controversial real-life events, any attempt at damage control by the organization under scrutiny could merely wind up boosting the film’s commercial and cultural profile when Open Road releases it Nov. 6 Stateside. As such, Catholic officials might be disinclined to take up arms against “Spotlight” as vocally as they did with “Philomena” (2013), which invited legitimate criticism with its cartoonishly villainous Irish nuns and other dramatic liberties. McCarthy’s picture is all the more authoritative for its comparative restraint: Perhaps realizing the number of different ways they could have tackled a narrative of this density, the director and his co-writer, Josh Singer (“The Fifth Estate”), have shrewdly limited themselves to the journalists’ perspective, ensuring that everything we learn about the scandal comes to us strictly through the Globe’s eyes and ears.

There are no triumphant, lip-smacking confrontations here, no ghoulish rape flashbacks or sensationalistic cutaways to a sinister clerical conspiracy behind closed doors. There is only the slow and steady gathering of information, the painstaking corroboration of hunches and leads, followed by a sort of slow-dawning horror as the sheer scale of the epidemic comes into focus. When a reporter notes that he’d love to see the looks on the faces of Cardinal Bernard Law (Len Cariou) and other Boston Archdiocese officials, it’s a measure of the film’s rigor that it refuses to oblige.

The sole exception to this ground rule is the prologue, set on a wintry 1976 night at a Boston police station, where a priest named Father John Geoghan is briefly held and then quietly released into the hands of the Archdiocese. Twenty-seven years later, in July 2001, the horrific consequences of that incident have been brought to light, with allegations that the now-defrocked Geoghan molested more than 80 young boys during his time in the priesthood. The Globe runs a few stories but little follow-up, until newly hired top editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), who’s determined to bring a new urgency to the newspaper’s coverage and boost its local impact, turns the beat over to Spotlight, a four-person investigative team led by editor Walter “Robby” Robinson ( Michael Keaton ).

The search proceeds slowly but on multiple fronts. Hard-headed reporter Michael Rezendes ( Mark Ruffalo ) works doggedly to secure the cooperation of Mitchell Garabedian (a spry Stanley Tucci), the notoriously larger-than-life lawyer who’s representing 86 plaintiffs in the Geoghan case, and also to unseal sensitive documents that the Church has successfully buried until now. Another Spotlight writer, Sacha Pfeiffer ( Rachel McAdams ), digs into abuse claims that have been filed against other local priests, interviewing victims and cornering top attorney Eric MacLeish (Billy Crudup, slick), whose own attempts to hold the Church to account have done little to keep them from, in Robinson’s words, “turning child abuse into a cottage industry.”

That thread is pursued still further by reporter Matt Carroll (Brian D’Arcy James), who discovers an ingenious method of tracing those pedophile priests whose ongoing offenses were not only known but actively enabled by the Archdiocese — usually by sending them to treatment centers before reassigning them to new parishes, where they were free to prey upon children anew. Working with ace d.p. Masanobu Takayanagi, McCarthy directs in a clean, fluid style as he traces the story from the Boston Globe newsroom (the camera often following staffers through the corridors in lengthy tracking shots) to the city’s low-income margins, where priests reliably went after the most vulnerable kids they could find.

As the investigation grinds on for months, with Howard Shore’s score busily marking the passage of time in the background, Robinson and his team realize their job is not just to expose “a few bad apples” (at least 87 priests in the Boston area may be offenders, enough to qualify as a genuine psychiatric phenomenon), but also to prove the existence of a systemic cover-up at the highest levels of Church — one that goes beyond Cardinal Law and extends into the very heart of the Vatican itself. The question becomes not just what to publish but when to publish, as the reporters must figure out how to write the most commanding piece they can before they’re scooped by the competition — or before word leaks back to the Church itself, which is well equipped to fight a public-relations war, especially in Boston.

Even without the onscreen presence of Globe deputy managing editor Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery), whose father famously steered the Washington Post through Watergate, “All the President’s Men” would be the obvious touchstone here. Like so many films consumed with the minutiae of daily journalism, “Spotlight” is a magnificently nerdy process movie — a tour de force of filing-cabinet cinema, made with absolute assurance that we’ll be held by scene after scene of people talking, taking notes, following tips, hounding sources, poring over records, filling out spreadsheets, and having one door after another slammed in their faces. When the Spotlight investigation is temporarily halted in the wake of 9/11, we’re reminded that the film is also a period piece, set during a time when print journalism had not yet entered its death throes. Like the American remake of “State of Play” (in which McAdams also played a journalist), McCarthy’s film includes a loving montage of a printing press, busily churning out the next morning’s edition — a valedictory sequence that may move old-school journalists in the audience to tears.

The story’s newsgathering focus ultimately creates a level of distance from its subject that works both for the film and against it. As information-system dramas go, “Spotlight” doesn’t have the haunting thematic layers of “Zodiac,” and it never summons the emotional force of the 1991 miniseries “The Boys of St. Vincent,” still the most devastating docudrama ever made about child abuse within the Catholic Church. Many of the victims depicted here — like Phil Saviano (Neal Huff), head of a local survivors’ group, and Joe Crowley (Michael Cyril Creighton), who movingly recalls his treatment at the hands of a priest named Paul Shanley — function in a mostly expository manner, offering up vital but fleeting insights into the psychology of the abusers and the abused, but without taking pride of place in their own story.

Where the film proves extraordinarily perceptive is in its sense of how inextricably the Church has woven itself into the very fabric of Boston life, and how it concealed its corruption for so long by exerting pressure and influence on the city’s legal, political and journalistic institutions. Given the blurrier-than-usual separation of church and state, and the fact that the newspaper’s own readership includes a high percentage of Irish Catholics, it’s no surprise that it falls to an outsider like Baron — a Florida native and the first Jewish editor to take the helm at the Globe — to play hardball with the Archdiocese. If there’s anything that keeps “Spotlight” from devolving into a simplistic heroic-crusaders movie, it’s the filmmakers’ refusal to let the Globe itself off the hook, pointing out the numerous times the paper’s leaders glossed over reports of abuse that landed on their doorstep.

As he demonstrated in films like “The Station Agent” and “The Visitor,” McCarthy has always had a nicely understated touch with actors, and his ensemble here is a model of low-key excellence. The heftiest roles go to Keaton, who presents Robinson as a flawed but strong, soul-searching leader, and Ruffalo, whose passionately committed Rezendes gets to display the most energy and emotional range (including one of the film’s few excessively histrionic moments). McAdams imbues Pfeiffer with sensitivity and grit, while D’Arcy James brings understated shadings to Carroll, a hard-working family man who’s alarmed to learn that a suspected perpetrator is living in his neighborhood.

Slattery, Tucci and Schreiber all shine in small yet vital roles, while the cast also includes sharp work by Jamey Sheridan and Paul Guilfoyle as two Church-connected friends who try to talk Robinson down from his publish-or-parish stance. We recognize them immediately — and perhaps a bit of ourselves — as members of a great swath of decent yet compromised humanity, the proverbial good men who do nothing and allow evil to flourish.

Reviewed at Open Road Films screening room, Los Angeles, Aug. 25, 2015. (In Venice Film Festival — noncompeting; Telluride Film Festival; Toronto Film Festival — Special Presentations.) MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 128 MIN.

• Production: An Open Road Films release, presented in association with Participant Media and First Look Media, of an Anonymous Content and Rocklin/Faust production. Produced by Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin, Blye Pagon Faust. Executive producers, Jeff Skoll, Jonathan King, Pierre Omidyar, Michael Bederman, Bard Dorros, Tom Ortenberg, Peter Lawson, Xavier Marchand. Co-producers, Kate Churchill, Youtchi von Lintel.
• Crew: Directed by Tom McCarthy. Screenplay, Josh Singer, McCarthy. Camera (color), Masanobu Takayanagi; editor, Tom McArdle; music, Howard Shore; music supervisor, Mary Ramos; production designer, Stephen Carter; art director, Michaela Cheyne; set decorator, Shane Vieau; set designers, William Cheng, John MacNeil; costume designer, Wendy Chuck; sound, Glen Gauthier; visual effects supervisor, Colin Davies; visual effects producer, J.P. Giamos; visual effects, Spin VFX; stunt coordinators, JG, Branko Racki; associate producer, David Mizner; assistant director, Walter Gasparovic; casting, Kerry Barden, Paul Schnee.
• With: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Brian D’Arcy James, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup, Paul Guilfoyle, Jamey Sheridan, Len Cariou, Neal Huff, Michael Cyril Creighton.

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‘Spotlight’ Review: Tom McCarthy’s Ode to Investigative Journalism Hits Hard | TIFF 2015

McCarthy delivers an absolutely captivating, nuts-and-bolts journalism tale that still has emotional heft thanks to its thoughtful storytelling and stellar ensemble.

Investigative journalism may not be dead yet, and Tom McCarthy ’s searing Spotlight is a powerful reminder of why it’s so necessary to our world. The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team breaking the story of the Catholic Church’s cover-up of sex abuse is one of the most important events in the Church’s history, and considering that the Church has over a billion members and has been around for a couple millennia, that makes the story one of the most important in Western history. And yet McCarthy keeps his focus on the shoe-leather reporting that got the story together, and masterfully avoids clichés along the way while wisely pointing out that there’s enough blame for the abuse to go around. It’s a movie that demands and earns your full attention as it expertly strings together a host of important players and events, and thanks to the direction and the excellent ensemble, we hang on every word.

In July 2001, Marty Baron ( Liev Schreiber ) became the editor of the Boston Globe and tasked the paper’s investigative team, Spotlight, with looking into Catholic priests sexually abusing minors. Although the abuse looks like a few scattered incidents at first, the team digs further and sees that both the abuse and the cover-up were systemic. However, thorough their investigation, they receive pushback from various organizations and individuals who would prefer to let sleeping dogs lie.

However, McCarthy makes sure to never sensationalize the investigation. There’s no hackneyed moments of the reporters looking over their shoulders as they go down a dark alley. McCarthy respects their work by highlighting the grit and intelligence of following down leads, putting the pieces together, and uncovering information. It’s not glamorous, but he manages to make it utterly compelling, and his refusal to give into dramatic shortcuts shows great respect not only for Spotlight’s work, but also for the audience.

Spotlight demands your full attention or you will get lost. The film features a true ensemble, and while Baron helps to set off the chain of events, the main players are Spotlight editor Walter “Robby” Robinson ( Michael Keaton ) and reporters Michael Rezendes ( Mark Ruffalo ), Sacha Pfeiffer ( Rachel McAdams ), and Matt Carroll ( Brian d'Arcy James ), and they all lead to other important figures like attorneys Mitchell Garabedian ( Stanley Tucci ) and Eric MacLeish ( Billy Crudup ). The Spotlight team uncovered a vast conspiracy, and McCarthy perfectly doles out information so that the audience is never lost as long as they’re full engaged, and he we’re always engaged thanks to the superb direction and strong performances.

Although the story is shocking, Spotlight is a refreshingly subdued picture. It’s fast-paced, but characters rarely scream at each other (there is one scene where that happens, and it feels a bit like an outlier) or face intense situations. It’s a slow burn where the emotional impact comes from the victims’ tales and the outrage over the cover-up rather than any embellishments. Howard Shore ’s piano-heavy score and Masanobu Takayanagi ’s balanced cinematography help provide contours and shading to the world; nothing needs to be heightened, only respected.

From there, McCarthy trusts his actors, and they don’t let him down. Spotlight is a true ensemble piece, and everyone gets a chance to shine. Keaton gets the most mic-drop moments; John Slattery , who plays deputy managing editor Ben Bradlee Jr., is a delight as always; and Tucci steals every scene he’s in as the curmudgeonly Garabedian, but there’s not a weak link in the cast. Everyone is magnetic when they’re on screen, and they need to be because this is a film about research and conveying information. There’s no room to be flashy, just honest.

Spotlight is a true heir to All the President’s Men , but it’s not a throwback. If anything, it only feels more immediate because of how drastically the media landscape has changed in the past several decades. The movie convincingly shows how investigative journalism isn’t just a luxury for a newspaper or a first world country; it’s a necessity for every society, and even when we have it, we’re imperfect.

The Boston Globe doesn’t get off scot-free, and Spotlight shows that blame for the Church’s cover-up extended far beyond the Church. It went to everyone who either looked the other way or didn’t have the time or energy to even bother looking in the first place.

It’s an intricate web, but when it’s finally untangled, a remarkable and striking picture emerges. Spotlight is that picture.

Click here for all of our TIFF 2015 coverage thus far or peruse links to our reviews below:

• The Danish Girl
• The Devil’s Candy
• Hitchcock/Truffaut
• I Smile Back
• The Iron Giant: Signature Edition
• Kill Your Friends
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Previous Story

• Entertainment
• Movie Review

Review: In Spotlight, old-school journalism is its own kind of thrill ride

Life in the old-timey ancient newsrooms of 2002.

• By Tasha Robinson
• on November 4, 2015 10:30 am

Tom McCarthy’s journalists-in-the-trenches period piece Spotlight is almost more remarkable for the scenes it doesn’t include. It’s a movie about a crusading newspaper team slowly uncovering a huge scandal, but there are practically no big, Oscar-worthy screaming matches. No wives give the old “You’re endangering our children and tearing this family apart, why can’t you stop being so principled?!” speech. (See Bridge Of Spies for a recent example.) No self-righteous citizens attack the journalists in public, leave threatening notes on their doorsteps, or sabotage their homes. (See the upcoming Trumbo .) There are no hired assassins or hidden bombs; no reporters racing to the printers just in time to scream “Stop the presses!”

In other words, it’s a film about journalism as it’s practiced in newsrooms, instead of how it’s practiced in Hollywood movies. It’s a story about work that’s rarely cinematic, told without breast-beating or sensationalizing. It’s a potential awards-bait thriller toned down in the spirit of McCarthy’s other restrained, evocative, but quietly intellectual films, including The Station Agent, The Visitor , and Win Win . It’s surprising for all these reasons. It’s also hypnotically entertaining.

To be fair, it depicts journalism as it was practiced around 2000, when there was a lot more frantic scribbling in notebooks, and a lot more digging through microfiche records, dusty clippings, and outdated reference manuals. None of this may sound exciting to viewers outside the industry, and Spotlight certainly isn’t an edge-of-the-seat adventure. But it’s still fascinating to see how much has changed in journalism in just 15 years — and how little has changed about what it takes to get a solid story, and to break news that people need to hear.

There are plenty of opportunities for melodrama, but McCarthy isn't interested

Spotlight focuses on a special team at The Boston Globe , dedicated to deep research and longform journalism. In 2002, the Spotlight group (which is still breaking news today, and claims the title of the "oldest continuous investigative reporting team in the country") launched a wave of reports about pedophile priests in Boston, focusing on the ways the Catholic Church had consistently paid off the victims, kept the cases away from police or the courts, and silently shunted the offenders to other dioceses where they often continued to prey on young parishioners. The eventual result was an international outing of Church policy, as victims came forward and investigations started around the globe.

But Spotlight keeps the story small and personal. It starts in 2001 with the arrival of a new editor at the Globe : Marty Baron, a New York Times and Miami Herald veteran who came in to cut costs and shake up the paper’s coverage. Spotlight ’s treatment of him is an advance alert for the rest of the movie: Liev Schreiber plays him as a quiet, polite, thoughtful man who tactfully defers to others in public, and just as tactfully demands provable conclusions and solid journalism. Baron, being the reasonable man that he is, gives Spotlight team leader "Robby" Robinson (Michael Keaton) plenty of leeway to explore possible leads with his core crew — Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes, Rachel McAdams as Sacha Pfeiffer, John Slattery as Ben Bradlee Jr., and Brian d'Arcy James as Matty Carroll. And ultimately, they spend a year digging into the priest scandal before going to press.

One complication: it’s a cover-up, so almost no one except the victims wants to talk about it, and with sealed court records and off-the-books deals abounding, the victims can be hard to find. Another complication: Baron doesn’t just want to indict some child molesters, he wants to indict the larger Church system that makes a policy of protecting them. A third complication: The Boston Globe ’s subscriber base at the time was 53 percent Catholic, in a heavily Catholic-skewed city where biased judges and protective parishioners had every reason not to cooperate with the Spotlight team. Baron is seen as an outsider who may have a fresh perspective, but whose background — Jewish, single, not a Boston native — suggests a naïveté about the impact of the work he’s encouraging. Of course, that gives him all the more freedom to do it.

Open Road Films

And so Spotlight draws its tension not from big drama, but from the audience's awareness of history, the sense that the story is out there, and that justice is waiting to be served. The suspense is in what procedural steps these notepad crusaders will take to find it and prove it. In this regard as in many others, Spotlight closely resembles Alan J. Pakula's 1976 Oscar-winner All The President's Men , another buttoned-down movie about shoe-leather journalism. And much as with All The President's Men , there's a feeling that everyone in Boston already knows about the Church's secret, and are simultaneously shaking with anxiety over the possibility of it being outed and impatient with the paper's plodding, punctilious efforts to make it happen.

Adding to the resemblance is Ruffalo's Rezendes, who, with his rumpled shirts, tense slouch, and mumbly affect is straight evocation of Dustin Hoffman's Carl Bernstein. Rezendes emerges as Spotlight 's most emotionally involved reporter and the closest thing the film has to a hero. But Spotlight 's only really weak point is presenting him and his teammates as parts in a machine, to the point where it's sometimes hard to tell them apart. They're all gently obsessive without having individual reasons for sacrificing their lives to their careers; they aren't people who chose journalism, they're ür-journalists who appear to have sprung fully formed from the printing press. While Ruffalo does get one shouty moment that's guaranteed to show up in the Academy clip reels this year, ultimately, the film is more about the story than the people who broke it.

Spotlight does find an emotional hook, however, when it turns its attention to the victims of pedophilia — which it manages to do without feeling exploitative. At several points throughout the film, Rezendes and the team speak to adults who were molested as kids to talk about what happened and what it meant to them, and these scenes provide the pathos and urgency the film might otherwise lack. "It's like God asking for help," one interviewee says, about the queasy excitement of being brought into a priest's personal confidence. And then: "When a priest does this to you, he robs you of your faith."

There are plenty of opportunities for melodrama in this material, but McCarthy isn't interested. Instead, he and co-writer Josh Singer (a West Wing and Fringe vet) stick to the facts, bringing their own obsessive diligence to bear on making Spotlight as true to life as possible. (Several of the real-life Spotlight crew have written entertaining Globe essays on the actors' research into them, and the push for micro-focused verisimilitude on the film.) Spotlight is anchored securely in its era, from the hairstyles to the clothes to the exact technological moment where all the reporters had desktop computers or even laptops, but still defaulted to pen and paper when recording phone conversations.

And that's where it finds that hypnotic effect — in its precision and realism. Michael Keaton, who returned to leading roles with last year's histrionic Birdman , couldn't be more different here, or further away from the comedy chops that made his name. His Robinson is a grey man, a sober, driven functionary whose only personal drama is a regret in not getting to the story earlier. According to the real-life versions of the people onscreen, Keaton, Ruffalo and McAdams are all doing note-perfect impressions of their subjects. But it's egoless work, all but invisible onscreen. Spotlight is a story about human deception, human predation, human selfishness, and human idealism — but it's barely about an actual group of humans. It's about the rewards of hard work and a dedication to truth. Even without fireworks and firefights, it's immensely satisfying to watch.

Spotlight opens in select theaters on November 6th.

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Spotlight Reviews

Spotlight is a must-watch for people in the media, as well as people who consume the media, because it reaffirms a belief in the ideals of journalism.

Full Review | Nov 1, 2023

It’s not just that it is a profound story, but one that is executed to perfection that draws out such emotion.

Full Review | Jun 14, 2023

[It] wound gripping tension into the unglamorous legwork of journalists, played by a perfectly-balanced ensemble including Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams.

Full Review | Apr 20, 2023

There is an incredible balance within the film. It is a journalism procedural, but there is also the serious and unsettling story we witness being uncovered.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 25, 2022

The excellent ensemble of actors holds up a story that is straight-forward but effective in its dedication to the painstaking research needed to uncover such an important story.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | May 27, 2022

McCarthy's sobering drama affects on multiple levels, from personal to spiritual.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 25, 2022

Little pieces expose an entire world.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 16, 2021

Perfectly paced and structured like a thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Aug 10, 2021

The power the media has to affect change and expose corruption is one that should never be taken for granted. It takes a special movie like Spotlight to bring this back into focus.

Full Review | Jul 30, 2021

No tights or capes, but this is a film about superheroes.

Full Review | Jun 8, 2021

One of the film's strengths is that it shows the Catholic hierarchy as an essential component of Boston's political and social superstructure.

Full Review | Feb 26, 2021

A glimpse behind the scenes of the Boston Globe's revelatory articles exposing pedophilia in the Roman Catholic Church takes few prisoners and paints the staff of the Globe as heroes who had to put aside their own cherished beliefs to bring about justice.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 16, 2020

A syllogism: A) The Communist agenda put 1,100 men into the Catholic church to destroy it from within. B) The destruction was due to rampant pedophilia. C) Therefore, the 1,100 men were chosen because they were pedophiles. "Spotlight" shows why.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 12, 2020

It's practically a documentary in the way that it depicts the reporting that led to the unearthing of 2001's shattering Catholic Archdiocese scandal.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 4, 2020

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.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.0/4.0 | Sep 24, 2020

A celebration of the profession and a source of inspiration for every journalist. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 28, 2020

'Spotlight' reminds us the relevance of journalism in a society where the search for truth has been kidnapped by fallacies. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 26, 2020

Relevant, exciting, and minimal (on a grand scale), this one is unmissable.

Full Review | Apr 7, 2020

Spotlight itself is a masterpiece of grounded filmmaking.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2020

The script... is a marvel of conveying a dense amount of information and characterization with intelligence, grace, and a surprising amount of tension.

Full Review | Jan 14, 2020

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Spotlight review – exposing the sins of the fathers

Tom McCarthy’s solid newsroom drama gets behind the headlines of the child abuse scandal that rocked Boston’s Catholic community in 2002

A ctor-turned-filmmaker Tom McCarthy has always been a low-key champion of the outsider. His first film as writer/director, 2003’s The Station Agent , starred Peter Dinklage as a Hoboken exile who moves into an abandoned train depot seeking solitude and becomes an unexpected catalyst for change. In 2007’s The Visitor , Richard Jenkins’s widowed college professor strikes up a life-changing bond with the family of a Syrian immigrant who has unexpectedly moved into his Manhattan apartment. Now, in the Oscar-nominated Spotlight , McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer give us the true story of how the Boston Globe , under its first Jewish editor, out-of-towner Marty Baron, took on the entrenched abusive institutions of the church in a city where Catholicism is a way of life and police and priests are thick as thieves.

After an ominous 1976 cop-shop prologue, we move to the offices of the Globe in 2001, where the somewhat brittle Baron (Liev Schreiber, downplaying it with aplomb) arrives amid whispered talk of job losses. As alienated from Boston’s sporting heritage as from its deference to the Catholic church (“So he’s an unmarried man of the Jewish faith who hates baseball?”), Baron sets the Globe ’s investigative “Spotlight” team on an old story about John Geoghan, a retired priest around whom accusations of child abuse multiply. Initially reluctant to pursue sealed documents that could implicate the holy hierarchy in an overarching scandal (“You want to sue the church …?”), the journalists soon find themselves locking heads with both the religious and legal institutions at the heart of a wide-ranging, systemic cover-up.

In his damning 2012 documentary, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God , Alex Gibney suggested that the Vatican holds records on the abuse of children by priests dating back to the 4th century. Spotlight shifts the focus away from the church to examine how an entire community may become complicit in an unspoken crime. “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one,” says Stanley Tucci’s Mitchell Garabedian, the Armenian attorney (another outsider) whose clients have faced a conspiracy of silence among the great and the good of Boston. And just as friends and families have all historically turned a blind eye (“My mother? She put out friggin cookies... ”), so the Globe itself must face up to its own shortcomings in failing to follow up a story that should have been front-page news several years ago.

With its convincingly mundane scenes of journalists bashing phones, knocking on doors and trawling through dusty records, Spotlight inevitably draws comparison with Alan J Pakula’s All the President’s Men . Precise detail aside, there’s little of Pakula’s cinematic panache on display here. While Gordon Willis’s cinematography turned All the President’s Men into a neorealist symphony of surveillance and shadows, director of photography Masanobu Takayanagi goes for something more unobtrusively televisual with Spotlight , McCarthy burying any discernible visual “style” behind the more pressing issue of script and story. Perhaps the film-makers felt their subject was too important to be aestheticised, resulting in a peculiarly flat surface with few jagged edges.

With McCarthy dialling it down in the director’s chair, it’s left to the players to provide the fireworks and they duly rise to the challenge. Having scored an attention-grabbing career resurrection in Alejandro González Iñárittu’s Birdman , Michael Keaton seems to act from a knot in his lower back as Walter “Robby” Robinson, the Spotlight stalwart whose solid stance is shaken as the extent of the scandal becomes clear. As Sacha Pfeiffer, the reporter who still goes to mass with her grandma but gradually loses even that last residual connection with the church, Rachel McAdams has one of the very best scenes in the movie, a moment that balances a distant crisis of faith with the real and present courage of conviction.

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. Yet Ruffalo is at his best when doggedly dealing with courthouse wrangles and dispassionately listening to the testimony of survivors reluctant even to speak of their ordeals. It is in these scenes that the strength of his performance is clearest, and his immersion in the role most complete.

Unsurprisingly, Spotlight has ruffled some feathers: Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn called in the lawyers after seeing himself depicted as “callous and indifferent”, a portrayal that made him “throw up”. Yet whatever dramatic licence it may take, the film has an authentic air, with McCarthy and Singer (the latter of whom worked on the less convincing The Fifth Estate ) displaying an investigative reporter’s flair for seeing beyond the headlines and getting the story behind the story.

• Mark Kermode's film of the week
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Movie Reviews

Movie review: 'spotlight'.

Kenneth Turan

The new movie Spotlight is about the team of investigative reporters at the Boston Globe that broke the story of sexual abuse in Boston's Catholic Archdiocese.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Now let's turn to the dramatic treatment given to a major news story. It's a horrifying story, uncovered by The Boston Globe of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. Kenneth Turan reviews the film "Spotlight."

KENNETH TURAN, BYLINE: "Spotlight" doesn't call attention to itself. It's self-effacing and low-key, and director Tom McCarthy encourages its fistful of top actors, including Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Liev Schreiber, to blend into an eloquent ensemble. One reason for this realistic approach is that the story "Spotlight" tells is significant twice over, first for its depiction of what proved to be international crimes, but also for illustrating society's need for old-fashioned investigative journalism - the kind of telling truth to power that's increasingly in jeopardy in the age of quick and short. It was to tell those kinds of stories that The Boston Globe formed the Spotlight unit. Here, the team's leader, played by Keaton, explains his job to new editor Marty Baron, played by Schreiber.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SPOTLIGHT")

MICHAEL KEATON: (As Walter Robby Robinson) You're an editor for the Spotlight team.

LIEV SCHREIBER: (As Marty Baron) I prefer to think of myself as a player coach, but yes.

KEATON: (As Walter Robby Robinson) Are you familiar with Spotlight?

SCHREIBER: (As Marty Baron) No, not particularly.

KEATON: (As Walter Robby Robinson) Well, we are a four-person investigative team. We report to Ben Bradlee, Jr., and we keep our work confidential.

TURAN: The new editor tells Robinson he wants Spotlight to focus on the accusations of clergy sexual misconduct. Everyone is nervous about the enormity of what they're taking on, but the reporters plunge ahead, interviewing, taking notes, reading through mountains of material. At one point, reporter Mike Rezendes, played by Ruffalo, gets into a battle with his boss about how to proceed.

MARK RUFFALO: (As Mike Rezendes) Are you telling me that if we run a story with 50 pedophile priests in Boston...

KEATON: (As Walter Robby Robinson) Mike, we'll get into the same catfight you got into on Porter, which made a lot of noise but changed things not one bit. We need to focus on the institution, not the individual priests.

TURAN: "Spotlight" is both damning and inspiring, depressing and heartening. Though it's set over a decade ago, it's the "All The President's Men" for our time. And, boy, do we need it now.

MONTAGNE: Kenneth Turan reviews movies for MORNING EDITION and The Los Angeles Times. This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Review: In ‘Spotlight,’ The Boston Globe Digs Up the Catholic Church’s Dirt

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By A.O. Scott

• Nov. 5, 2015

“Spotlight” won the Oscar for best picture. Read our complete coverage of the Academy Awards.

“The city flourishes when its great institutions work together,” says the cardinal to the newspaper editor during a friendly chat in the rectory. The city in question is Boston. The cardinal is Bernard F. Law and the editor, newly arrived at The Boston Globe from The Miami Herald, is Martin Baron. He politely dissents from the cardinal’s vision of civic harmony, arguing that the paper should stand alone.

Anatomy of a Scene | ‘Spotlight’

Tom mccarthy narrates a sequence from “spotlight.”.

Their conversation, which takes place early in “ Spotlight ,” sets up the film’s central conflict. Encouraged by Baron, a small group of reporters at The Globe will spend the next eight months (and the next two hours) digging into the role of the Boston archdiocese in covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests. But the image of two prominent men talking quietly behind closed doors — Law is played with orotund charm by Len Cariou, Baron with sphinxlike self-containment by Liev Schreiber — haunts this somber, thrilling movie and crystallizes its major concern, which is the way power operates in the absence of accountability. When institutions convinced of their own greatness work together, what usually happens is that the truth is buried and the innocent suffer. Breaking that pattern of collaboration is not easy. Challenging deeply entrenched, widely respected authority can be very scary.

Directed by Tom McCarthy from a script he wrote with Josh Singer and based closely on recent history, “Spotlight” is a gripping detective story and a superlative newsroom drama, a solid procedural that tries to confront evil without sensationalism. Taking its name from the investigative team that began pursuing the sex-abuse story in 2001, the film focuses on both the human particulars and the larger political contours of the scandal and its uncovering.

We spend most of our time with the Spotlight staff. Their supervising editor, Walter Robinson (known as Robby and played by an extra-flinty Michael Keaton), has a classically blunt, skeptical newsman style, but he’s also part of Boston’s mostly Roman Catholic establishment. He rubs shoulders with an unctuous church P.R. guy (Paul Guilfoyle) and plays golf with a well-connected lawyer (Jamey Sheridan) who handled some of the archdiocese’s unsavory business. The reporters working for Robby — Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) — come from Catholic backgrounds, and have their own mixed feelings about what they’re doing.

Mr. McCarthy, who played a rotten reporter on the last season of “The Wire,” views journalists primarily through the lens of their work. He follows Pfeiffer as she interviews survivors, Rezendes as he wrangles a zealous lawyer (Stanley Tucci) and Carroll as he digs into long-hidden records, including articles buried in the newspaper’s archives. Though the film, like the Spotlight articles , avoids euphemism in discussing the facts of child rape, it also avoids exploitative flashbacks, balancing attention to individual cases with a sense of pervasive, invisible corruption. Baron urges the reporters to focus on the systemic dimensions of the story, and “Spotlight” does the same. As the number of victims and predators increases, and as it becomes clear that Law and others knew what was happening and protected the guilty, shock and indignation are replaced by a deeper sense of moral horror.

The outcome of the story may be well known, but Mr. McCarthy and his superb cast generate plenty of suspense along the way, and the idiosyncratic humanity of the reporters keeps the audience engaged and aware of the stakes. During the climactic montage — the presses humming, the papers stacked and baled, the trucks rumbling out into the morning light — my heart swelled and my pulse quickened, and not only because I have printer’s ink running through my veins. Journalists on film are usually portrayed as idealists or cynics, crusaders or parasites. The reality is much grayer, and more than just about any other film I can think of, “Spotlight” gets it right.

It captures the finer grain of newsroom life in the early years of this century almost perfectly, starting with a scene in which a retiring veteran is sent off with awkward speeches, forced laughter and dry cake. As the story unfolds, there are scenes of pale-skinned guys in pleated khakis and button-down oxfords gathering under fluorescent lights and ugly drop ceilings, spasms of frantic phone-calling and stretches of fidgety downtime. Not even the raffish presence of “Mad Men” bad-boy John Slattery can impart much glamour to these drab surroundings. Visually, the movie is about as compelling as a day-old coffee stain. As I said: almost perfect.

The Globe itself (owned by The New York Times Company when the film takes place) is shown to be an imperfect institution. The people who work inside it are decidedly fallible — as prone to laziness, confusion and compromise as anyone else. Before 2001 — with some exceptions, notably in the work of the columnist Eileen McNamara (played here in a few cursory scenes by Maureen Keiller) — the paper overlooked both the extent of the criminality in the local church and the evidence that the hierarchy knew what was going on. The Spotlight reporters and editors are pursuing a big, potentially career-making scoop. At the same time, they are atoning for previous lapses and trying to overcome the bureaucratic inertia that is as integral to the functioning of a newspaper as the zealous pursuit of the truth. “What took you so long?” is a question they hear more than once.

To use “Spotlight” as an occasion to wax nostalgic for the vanishing glory of print would be to miss the point. The movie celebrates a specific professional accomplishment and beautifully captures the professional ethos of journalism. It is also a defense of professionalism in a culture that increasingly holds it in contempt.

Mr. McCarthy is a solid craftsman. The actors are disciplined and serious, forgoing the table-pounding and speechifying that might more readily win them prizes from their peers. Everything in this movie works, which is only fitting, since its vision of heroism involves showing up in the morning and — whether inspired by bosses or in spite of them — doing the job.

“Spotlight” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Graphic descriptions of despicable acts; language not fit for print. Running time: 2 hours 7 minutes.

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Spotlight is a masterclass in storytelling | review

Refreshingly realistic, superbly acted, and top-notch direction, spotlight proves to be one of the best movies of the year.

About thirty minutes into Spotlight , Boston Globe reporters Sacha Pfeiffer ( Rachel McAdams ) and Michael Rezendes ( Mark Ruffalo ) speak to two of the victims of abuse at the hand of Catholic priests belonging to the Archdiocese of Boston. The two separate interviews are interwoven, one amplifying the message of the other. And in the background — both literally and figuratively — is the Church. It’s scenes like these where Spotlight transforms from an engrossing journalistic slow burn into a marvelous empathetic piece of humanity.

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Spotlight , directed by Todd McCarthy, tells the story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the Boston Catholic Church scandal. Headed by Walter “Robby” Robinson ( Michael Keaton ), the Boston Globe Spotlight team explore the cover-up of over 90 cases of sexual abuse and molestation of children by Catholic priests.

While Spotlight is a feat of classic screenwriting that harkens back to the days of All the President’s Men or Network , McCarthy’s subtle direction is what amplifies it to greatness.

In frames and in dialogue, the Church’s power is feared and felt. The movie emphasizes: The Church is Boston and Boston is the Church. As attorney Mitch Garabedian ( Stanley Tucci ) says, “if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.” Moments of pure tension — the ones that bring the film alive — are brought about by the invisible power of the Church and the survivor’s trauma. And while their experience is central, it never feels exploitative.

Unlike the inaptly named film Truth from the same year, Spotlight feels like it’s after the truth, just as much as the journalists at its center.

Using natural lighting, imperfect takes, and casting actors according to their strengths gives the movie a cinéma vérité feel that is all the more affecting.

McCarthy leaves dramatic moments to characters rather than formulating the plot around shocking reveals or twists.

The entire ensemble — which Open Road has stressed in their campaign, the word ensemble — is at their career bests. John Slattery is perfect in his follow-up to Mad Men in a role that may feel similar but allows him to flex a muscle he’s been honing for the years the show has been on air. And while Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo have been receiving the bulk of the acclaim of the actors on the Spotlight team, Rachel McAdams  steals the… well, spotlight. Controlled and assured, her performance is an anchoring calm that lets the story take the forefront.

And that’s what makes Tom McCarthy’s direction so smart. Its restraint allows its subject to shine. The performances give it the time it deserves. Instead of dramatics, Spotlight feels so character driven.

Spotlight  tells the story that started the story. In today’s media environment, the role of the press has been both challenged yet as important as ever. The reverence that the movie has for the journalistic process is not only admirable but essential. It goes against anything that we’ve been forced to understand in film nowadays — bigger, louder, more tears, less emotion. However, Spotlight finds itself the best when the script doesn’t try, the actors don’t act, and camera just follows. Spotlight stays with you, if not for the film, at least for the truths that it uncovers.

It reminds us that we deserve the truth, it just takes someone (or someones) to uncover it.

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Hey! I’m Karl . You can find me on Twitter here . I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic .

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Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.

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Superb ‘Spotlight’ doesn’t turn journalists into heroes

Ever since “Spotlight” made its debut at a handful of international film festivals at the beginning of September, it has been praised by many people, almost all of them journalists. And that makes sense, since the film chronicles the reporting of The Boston Globe’s investigative Spotlight team as it uncovered the Roman Catholic Church’s decades-long coverup of pedophile priests. The press has to love a movie that glorifies the press, right?

Actually, one of the reasons that “Spotlight” is so deeply, absurdly satisfying to this newspaper writer — and to most of those I’ve spoken with, at the Globe and elsewhere — is that Tom McCarthy’s movie doesn’t turn its journalists into heroes. It just lets them do their jobs, as tedious and critical as those are, with a realism that grips an audience almost in spite of itself.

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McCarthy (“The Visitor,” “Win Win”) and his co-writer Josh Singer (“The West Wing,” “The Fifth Estate”) understand that the reporters aren’t the story in “Spotlight.” The story is the story. That, and the people whose stories the reporters want to tell: the men (and women) who were damaged unthinkably and twice — first, in childhood, by men of God and, later, by an institution that protected the abusers and enabled their abuse.

So “Spotlight” is about process — about the inherent drama of news gathering — even more so than that benchmark newsroom classic, “All the President’s Men,” which the new movie resembles. (The office furniture seems unchanged since the 1970s, for one thing, and, trust me, that is realism.) Covering a half-year period from mid-2001 through the beginning of 2002, the movie follows the reporters and their editors with a minimum of melodramatic window dressing.

Michael Keaton plays Spotlight editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (“player-coach,” is how he refers to himself) as an inversion of last year’s Birdman, all watchfulness and taciturn Boston wit. Under his management are reporters Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James), and Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo). Above him are deputy managing editor Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery of “Mad Men”) and the new guy in town, editor in chief Martin Baron (Liev Schreiber), who puts Robinson’s crew on the clergy abuse story during his first day on the job.

If you like your true-crime dramas torqued up to high RPMs, you’re in for a letdown. Most of the movie is people talking, in chairs, in meetings, on the phone. The film’s action alternates between combing through dusty files and harrowing interviews with abuse victims who’ve given up on being heard , among them Phil Saviano (Neal Huff), a local leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), Joe Crowley (Michael Cyril Creighton), and the late Patrick McSorley (Jimmy LeBlanc). The performances are terribly moving; the details remain tough sledding.

At issue, initially, is whether the Globe can successfully petition the Massachusetts courts to release sealed documents pertaining to the case of the Rev. John Geoghan, accused of molesting dozens of boys over the years. This becomes a dark comic motif early in “Spotlight”; “You want to sue the Catholic Church,” people keep incredulously telling Baron. Behind that disbelief, the movie observes, is a vast civic wall of deference and complacency — an inculcated, generations-old bowing down before the power of spiritual and institutional authority.

The new editor has a getting-to-know-you meeting with Cardinal Law (Len Cariou), who turns on the charm and gifts him with a catechism. Later in the movie, an affable friend of the archdiocese (Paul Guilfoyle) turns up to warn Robinson off. “This is how it happens, isn’t it?” Robinson muses. “Guy leans on a guy, and suddenly the whole town just looks the other way.” The enablers are well-intentioned, well-connected, and everywhere.

Maybe it’s too early to decide whether “Spotlight” is among the best Boston movies ever made — the accents are fine, the filmmakers seem to have the lay of the land — but in certain awful aspects it’s the most truthful. You sense the stain spreading across our neighborhoods and into the reporters’ lives when Robinson walks across Dorchester’s Morrissey Boulevard from the Globe offices to his alma mater, B.C. High, to ask unwanted questions about a fondly remembered teacher. During the end credits, the film lets that stain keep spreading into the rest of the country and the world.

The lighting is flat and unflattering, and the offices are dingy cinderblock veal pens. The pace is painstaking and steady. We all know how it’s going to end. Yet “Spotlight” holds you in a fugue state of suspense, the kind you replay in your head on the drive home and on into the next day, trying to retrace the chain of revelations, of how small things became enormous. The movie’s pared to the bone: There are no flashbacks, no office romances, mere glimpses of the reporters’ spouses and homes. There’s only one Big Speech, from Ruffalo’s Rezendes, and you’ve already heard it because they have to put something righteous-sounding in the trailers and awards-show clip reels. (What the clips don’t show is that the Big Speech has no effect whatsoever on Robinson’s decision to hold the story until it’s good and ready.)

A personal note: Obviously, I couldn’t be less objective about this movie. Neither could you if a film crew came in and made a drama in your office, with A-list stars playing the men and women you stand next to in the lunch line and banter with on the escalator (when it’s working). The filmmakers shot both at the Globe offices and on sets built in Toronto ; to add to my critical vertigo, actual co-workers can be glimpsed out of focus in the background of some shots.

Still, an insider’s eye has its benefits. Knowing the real reporters as I do — not closely but as colleagues — it’s fascinating to see how “Spotlight” builds character out of individuality rather than the other way around, as is standard operating procedure in Hollywood. Baron, now executive editor at The Washington Post, is a telling example. Where the movies like to portray their top editors as brash egotists braying into phones, the real Marty Baron is such a recessive, thoughtful figure that people can be drawn to him out of sheer curiosity. (They stay out of respect.) Schreiber gets the man’s anti-charisma charisma and so does the movie, and the result is a character type that feels genuinely new in commercial narrative: the minimalist leader. So it is with Keaton’s laconic Robinson — when things get bad, he just gets quieter — or with Ruffalo, who captures Rezendes’s forward-tilting tenacity with a faithfulness that gives some of us at the paper the giggles.

There are, of course, plenty of areas in which “Spotlight” takes liberties with the actuality of events and their order and who said what when. It downplays articles written in 2001 by Kristen Lombardi at the Boston Phoenix that preceded the Globe investigation (the script name-checks the paper but not the writer), and it folds the various lawyers representing the victims into the single querulous figure of Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci, who is his usual marvelous self). It skates over the many, many other Globe reporters and editors who were part of breaking this story. As always, you are seeing a representative truth.

But the movie’s also notable for how hard and successfully it resists the urge to amp up false drama; the filmmakers’ responsibility to the victims includes honoring how their traumas were brought to light. And “Spotlight” makes the sharp, sobering point that it took an outsider, Baron, to notice what the locals didn’t, or couldn’t, or maybe even wouldn’t, and that the Globe had more than one chance to open an investigation years earlier than it did. The movie paints this as the regrettable bureaucratic oversight of a hectic workplace. It’s also true that people are flawed and that institutions thrive by not making waves. Until something changes, and they do.

Among its other aspects, “Spotlight” is a fine example of the newsroom genre, minus the montage of spinning front pages but including a climactic sequence of the presses churning out the bombshell that will soon land on everyone’s porch. For people in the business, those shots are loaded with enough mounting nostalgia to bring on the tears. For those on the outside, they may serve as a reminder of the larger ideals that come with having a free press — and the hard, unheroic, everyday work that goes into maintaining it over the long haul.

Directed by Tom McCarthy. Written by Josh Singer and McCarthy. Starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Brian d’Arcy James, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci. At Boston Common. 128 minutes. R (some language, including sexual references; frank discussions of molestation).

More on "Spotlight":

• The story behind the 'Spotlight' movie
• Movie review: Superb ‘Spotlight’ doesn’t turn journalists into heroes
• How the ‘Spotlight’ movie got made
• The real people behind the ‘Spotlight’ characters
• Original report, part 1: Church allowed abuse by priest for years (Jan. 6, 2002)
• Original report, part 2: Geoghan preferred preying on poorer children (January 7,2002)

Ty Burr can be reached at [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter @tyburr .

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“Spotlight” and Its Revelations

By Sarah Larson

Since seeing the movie “Spotlight,” about the Boston Globe investigation of sexual abuse and coverups in the Catholic Church, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it and the questions it raises—about how far institutions will go to protect themselves, about who we listen to and protect, about who and what we ignore, about the power of disclosure and even conversation. It begins with a portrait of institutionalized secrecy—at a police station in Boston in 1976, where cops, a bishop, and an A.D.A. are keeping a molestation accusation quiet—and shows us the process of how the truth came to be revealed. Spotlight, the Globe’s investigative team, published its first story in its series, “ Church Allowed Abuse by Priest for Years ,” on January 6, 2002; in the next year, it published over six hundred more, using the Church’s own documents to document extensive and almost systemic abuse by clergy.

Recently, I went to the Globe offices and talked to three of the team’s journalists, Walter (Robby) Robinson (Michael Keaton in “Spotlight”), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), and Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), and I called their former editor, Martin (Marty) Baron, now the editor of the Washington Post , to ask about their experiences with the story. It begins with Baron’s arrival at the Globe from his previous job at the Miami Herald . He was an outsider—“an unmarried man of the Jewish faith who hates baseball,” as a character in the movie puts it—whose perspective helped him confront what others could not or would not.

Baron told me that before he got to the Globe , he knew little about the clergy sexual-abuse story. He also knew little about Boston. “I knew virtually nobody at the paper and virtually nobody in town,” he said. Copies of the Globe were shipped to him in Miami before his move. While reading them, he saw an article about Father John Geoghan, who had been accused of abusing as many as eighty-four kids. “That was in the Metro section,” he told me. “And I was struck that I hadn’t heard about the case.” The Sunday before his first day, Eileen McNamara published a column in which she noted that the plaintiffs’ attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, had accused Cardinal Bernard F. Law, of the Boston archdiocese, of knowing about Geoghan’s behavior, “and yet reassigning him, notwithstanding the serial abuse,” Baron said. The archdiocese’s lawyers denied it. “And at the end of the column, she said something to the effect of ‘The truth may never be known, because the documents are sealed.’ I was really struck by that.”

In Florida the previous year, Baron had made a stubborn, startling push for another important truth: the actual ballot numbers, via independent recount, in the Bush vs. Gore election . At the Globe , Baron said, his first day’s editorial meeting was much as it was depicted in “Spotlight.” “We went around the table and people mentioned their stories,” he said. “And I asked them about Eileen’s column and said, ‘One side’s saying one thing, we have another side saying something else. Isn’t there a way we can get at the truth?’ And people noted that the documents were under seal. I said I knew that, and I don’t know the laws of Massachusetts, but in Florida we might have wanted to go to court to unseal the documents. Had we thought of doing that? And there was dead silence in the room. I didn’t quite know how to respond.”

In “Spotlight,” that silence is explained: everyone would see it as the Globe suing the Catholic Church. Fifty-three per cent of the subscribers are Catholic, the publisher tells him. “I’ll think they’ll be interested,” Baron says. Baron is planning to meet Cardinal Law the following week, and the publisher suggests he not mention it to him.

In Boston, I sat in a conference room with Robinson, now an editor-at-large; Pfeiffer, a columnist and reporter, back at the Globe after seven years at WBUR, the Boston NPR station; and Rezendes, who is still on the Spotlight team. All three have a presence that conveys both compassion and precision; all three were brought up Catholic. Robinson has a calm focus and an unhurried manner, and he makes occasional jokes. Rezendes is thoughtful and intense. (Ruffalo has described him as having “an inner motor that really is cooking—as opposed to mine, which is usually sleepy.”) Pfeiffer talks quickly, efficiently, like a podcast played at 1.5x speed. (McAdams’s otherwise Pfeiffer-like performance doesn’t attempt this , out of respect for an audience trying to keep up.)

“I had twelve years of Catholic education,” Robinson said. “Including four years right there. My friends say I haven’t come far in life.” He pointed. We were sitting in front of a large paned window that overlooked Morrissey Boulevard and a brick building beyond it—Boston College High. “As a kid, I was an altar boy,” he said. “Now I look back and I feel blessed. I say, thank God nobody ever laid a hand on me.”

I asked what they had heard about sexual abuse in the Church before working on the investigation. Not much, they said. Like most, they considered it to be individual cases about individual priests. “This is pre-Internet,” Robinson said. “You may recall this from the film. When our visitor Phil Saviano ”—the leader of SNAP , a survivors’ network for people abused by priests—“mentions the Gauthe case , we didn’t know. Back in the day, if there was a case in New Orleans, and there was another big case in Dallas, unless the New York Times or The New Yorker or CBS News descended upon that story and did it nationally, how would the rest of us have known about it?” The relative isolation of that era helped keep things quiet, made it harder for people to connect the dots. “So in a way, the Church was more protected. The bishops and the cardinals said, ‘Well, this is one aberrant priest.’ And they actually said this—‘We’re no different than the Methodists or the Lutherans or the Boy Scouts.’ ”

“That’s what then-Cardinal Ratzinger said,” Rezendes said. “That the percentage of abusers in the Catholic Church was no greater than the percentage of abusers in the general population.”

Robinson said, “So when we got the assignment, as an investigative unit, to look into the case of one priest who had eighty-four lawsuits against him, and a lot of speculation—how could they not have known what he was up to?—we took that on as ‘Find out about the one priest.’ ”

“Face value,” Pfeiffer said.

“And within days, in different ways, one of which is portrayed in the movie, our meeting with Phil Saviano, all of a sudden we realized that it was some much larger number. And the much larger number we thought of was a tiny fraction of what it ended up being.”

Judge Constance M. Sweeney ordered the release of additional documents on the Geoghan case in January, 2001. Robinson said, “When we started to get the documents, the thousands and thousands of pages of documents—it was how many pages on Geoghan? Ten thousand pages?”

“Including depositions,” Rezendes said.

“I wanted to write a lede, and I was voted down by probably everybody, about what was not in the documents,” Robinson said. “I managed to slip it into the fourth paragraph. What was not in the documents was any indication anywhere of concern for the children who had been harmed. Not anywhere . It was all about protecting the reputation of the Church, and then, in parens, keeping it secret. It was always about the secrecy. If the crimes of the priest were mentioned, they were often referred to as ‘sins,’ for which the priest had repented and been forgiven. With no sophisticated understanding, at a time when there clearly should have been, that these were A) criminal acts and B) criminal acts of a type that recur again and again.”

Pfeiffer nodded. “I think this is totally key, that they really did view it as a sin to be forgiven and not a crime to be dealt with in the criminal-justice system,” she said. “It’s almost as if they felt like it was this innocent outlet.” She mentioned a conversation about John Geoghan that she’d had with a priest who worked in a retirement home. “This priest said to me, very lightly, ‘We all knew that Jack fooled around with little boys.’ And I just thought, What kind of euphemism is that? Fooled around? Another priest said to me, ‘We thought we were maintaining our celibacy vow if we fooled around with boys and not girls.’ ”

“There was no appreciation whatsoever of the impact on a child’s life or development,” Rezendes said.

“Zero,” Pfeiffer said. “And I think that’s one thing that’s still unclear. Does the Church get it? Do they get how it totally affects you the rest of your life? That you can almost never move beyond it?” Again and again, Pfeiffer said, the reporters talked to abuse survivors who seemed to be “locked in time based on something that happened when they were children or teen-agers.” If a person’s first encounter with sex was at a formative age and with a priest, she said, “it kind of wrecked them in a way from they could never recover from, or that they still struggle to recover from, at age forty, fifty, sixty.”

The idea of being locked in time reminded me of an idea that “Spotlight” had raised: that many priests are psychosexually stunted, on the emotional level of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old. “That was one of Richard Sipe’s findings,” Rezendes said. Sipe, an expert in clergy sexual abuse, was an important resource in the investigation. “He, of course, had been a celibate priest himself for many years, and a psychotherapist for priests. And you can see how it happens. People, boys, used to go into the seminary in junior high school, and so were essentially deprived normal sexual development, important to any human being.”

Sipe estimated that six per cent of priests were sexually abusive; what the Spotlight reporters found, in a diocese of twenty-two hundred priests, was that some two hundred were abusive—a figure closer to ten per cent. “So he was criticized vociferously, and he was lowballing it,” Rezendes said.

In the past few decades, when priests have been accused of abuse, they have often been sent to treatment centers run by the Church . “You could send them to a treatment center and then have legal-slash-medical justification for sending them to another parish,” Rezendes said. Often, the pastor at the next parish wasn’t told about the abuse accusations. Rezendes said, “Some of the pastors didn’t know, and they were devastated when they found out.”

The first stories in the series included a telephone number at the Globe that people could call to report additional clergy sexual abuse, and survivors came forward in droves. More documents came to light, and the story grew and grew. “It kept tentacling,” Pfeiffer said. “Ben Bradlee, Jr.”—then the assistant managing editor, played by John Slattery in the movie—“once we got all these personnel files, he started saying, ‘We can’t just do these priest-du-jour stories anymore.’ There were horrific stories in the files. But at some point you just stop writing about individual stories. We began looking at larger issues. Why did it happen? What was the role of the laity or the lack of the role of the laity? What’s the psychology of the priests? Why did there seem to be more boys and men coming forward than girls and women ?” (Some reasons: priests had access to boys that they didn’t have to girls, in church, in their homes, on camping trips; and, chillingly, because more boys were targeted, in part because they were less likely to talk. Poor families were targeted , too: mothers who needed help, children who needed care.)

Robinson said that as the story developed, sometimes they’d get information about a priest that, if they’d learned about it six months earlier, would have warranted a big page-one story. “One of them was about this priest who was in charge of the novitiate , the young high-school girls who become nuns,” he said. “He basically told them that he was Christ on Earth and they would have their sexual encounters with him and therefore achieve their communion with God that way.” Pfeiffer found him, and he answered the phone. “Her side of the conversation, for about forty-five minutes, was one of the most extraordinary interviews that I’ve ever heard,” Robinson said.

“He acknowledged everything in completely calm detail,” Pfeiffer said. In her piece, the priest, Robert V. Meffan, says, “What I was trying to show them is that Christ is human and you should love him as a human being. Don't think he’s up there and he’s spiritual and he’s not human and physical. He’s human, he’s physical.… I felt that by having this little bit of intimacy with them that this is what it would be like with Christ.”

Pfeiffer said to Robinson, “Tell your Maine story.”

Robinson paused. “It’s hard for me to tell this,” he said. “An eighty-seven-year-old man from Millinocket, Maine, who was a great-grandfather, called to tell me about how he had been abused at the age of twelve. I was the first person he had ever told. It had happened in 1926. And he called in January of 2002 to tell me how it had just—he had been troubled his whole life about it. I thought, three-quarters of a century of living with this. He was one of those who thought he was the only one.” Many victims thought the same thing.

Pfeiffer said, “As a society, we’re so open about sexuality today that I think people can forget what it was like in the forties, fifties, sixties. No one talked about sex, no one knew anything, it was shameful. I’ve talked to several men, who, all these decades later, who would say, ‘I was so horrified by what was happening when I was being abused, but my body was acting like I enjoyed it—does that mean I’m gay?’ This is decades later. And of course in that time you don’t want to be gay. What did that make you in society? People were afraid. Here we were in the two-thousands and people were saying, ‘Am I gay because of what happened to me and what my body did when I was twelve?’ That’s heartbreaking.”

Pfeiffer said that the survivors who spoke to them in the very beginning were especially brave. “The few who were willing to tell their stories were the ones who were risking ostracism, shame, stigma. But that was what empowered other people to say, ‘Oh, it wasn’t just me?’ And then the phones began ringing off the hook.”

In a scene in “Spotlight,” an abuse survivor tells Pfeiffer that he was “molested,” and Pfeiffer, very kindly, says, “Joe, I think that language is going to be so important here.” She wants him to say exactly what the priest did.

Pfeiffer said to me, “I am so glad that the filmmakers included that, because that was my huge mantra all along: ‘Molest’ is more than just a six-letter word. It’s so generic, it’s so sterile. And it’s easy for people to say, ‘Oh, molest, that’s terrible.’ Well, that could range from you’re in the front seat with the priest having ice cream, and he slips his hand up your shorts, to kids that got raped . You know? It started with the priest sleeping next to you at the campsite, and the next night it moved on to something else. We wanted people to understand how this can progress, how this can happen. We did a story about this kid who basically had been groomed by a priest, and he went back repeatedly with this priest. And I had a guy who called me and went back and said, ‘There’s absolutely no way that that could have happened. If that kid kept going back, then at some level he wanted it to happen.’ He told me this story about how he was swimming in this quarry in Boston, and ‘a naked guy came out of the woods and flashed us, and we knew to run away.’ But a naked guy coming out of a bush is not a priest who befriends your family. Who over the course of years cultivates you and grooms you. So we wanted people to understand: here’s how insidious it is, here’s how it happens, and here’s the range of horrors. Because depending on what happened, sometimes that was a pretty serious crime. Sometimes that was rape. Depending on what information we got, some priests went to jail. And the details mattered on that.”

One of the Spotlight stories involved a complicated situation of abuse and relationship: Timothy Lambert, a New Jersey priest who had been abused , as a youth, by a priest who was perhaps the most important male figure in his life, who, Rezendes wrote in 2002, “convinced him that he was every bit as worthy as his classmates, despite his alcoholic father.” The priest had also befriended, and abused, Lambert’s brother.

Rezendes said, “What was significant to us in that story was not only the abuse, and the notion of a priest accusing another priest of abuse, but the fact that the bishop in that case was essentially not giving the priest the time of day.”

I asked how they dealt with hearing all of these stories.

Pfeiffer said, “We often said we were felt like grief counselors who were not trained to be grief counselors.”

Rezendes said, “It was rough, quite honestly.”

Pfeiffer said, “These were calls that required patience and compassion. Robbie, your wife said—”

Robinson said, “My wife, who’s a nurse, said we all had P.T.S.D.”

After a year and a half, they turned to another investigative story and let the daily reporters cover the Church. The next Spotlight investigation concerned financial corruption in charitable organizations . “It was a story that required staying in the office and not talking on the phone and reading 990 tax returns,” Rezendes said. “And I remember sitting at my desk and reading a tax return and being very, very grateful that I was looking at some numbers and I didn’t have to hear another devastating story about someone whose life was destroyed by a priest who had betrayed him.”

Robinson said, “Not to make light of that in any way, but this was a year or two before there were improvements in P.D.F.s.” Many of the tax returns were hundreds of pages long, he said, and every page was sideways. “We’d be walking around like this.” He stood up, tilted his head to one side, and walked. They all laughed, remembering it vividly, and talked about that story for a minute, fired up about the fraud they’d discovered. Robinson said, “There’s a lesson for any journalist: any iconic institution needs some scrutiny.”

Rezendes said, “Wherever institutions are operating in secrecy, and people aren’t accountable, you’re likely to find wrongdoing. The Church is literally a secret institution. It doesn’t have the reporting requirements of a corporation or a nonprofit. It doesn’t file tax returns. They just don’t have any disclosure requirements at all. And they’re protected in large part by the First Amendment.”

Pfeiffer said, “Institutions that seem virtuous—nonprofits, religious organizations—tend to get a pass.”

Rezendes said, “If there’s a bottom-line lesson, it’s the old adage ‘Question authority.’ ”

Pfeiffer said, “This is absolutely an example of what happens when for decades people didn’t question authority. We’ve all talked about this, because we were all raised Catholic. We understand the deference the Church got. I had a grandmother who always had a rosary in her pocket, a mom who wanted to be a nun. When you’ve grown up in that kind of family, you understand how they wouldn’t ask questions. After the stories ran, my late grandmother”—whose character appears in the movie—“said, ‘We all thought the priests were little gods.’ And I remember thinking, And that’s how this happened. You didn’t think they could do anything wrong, and if you suspected they did, you wouldn’t ask questions.”

In the movie, the revelations of the Spotlight investigation make Pfeiffer too uneasy to keep going to Mass with her grandmother. I asked how her grandmother reacted in real life. “She was shocked and saddened, but she stuck with the Church till the day she died,” Pfeiffer said. “Some people left the Church; others tried to change it from within, like the group Voice of the Faithful ; others loved their parish, they loved their pastor, and they sort of said, ‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ and they kept going to Mass.”

Cardinal Law resigned in 2002, after a storm of public outrage. Powerful Catholic charities and laypeople sided against him; fifty-eight priests signed a letter demanding that he quit. (The Vatican then gave him a distinguished position in Rome; he is now retired.) In the past decade plus, a great many stories of clergy sexual abuse have come to light in cities worldwide. “Betrayal,” the Globe’s book about the scandal, says, “In 2014 the Vatican said that it had defrocked 848 priests worldwide for sexual abuse between 2004 and 2013, and that 2,572 clerics had been disciplined for abuse violations.” Policies have changed and priests have been punished, but bishops, for the most part, have not.

I asked the reporters about Baron, whose leadership had encouraged them to crack the story open. “Spotlight” has reunited them. They talked about him fondly—his clarity of purpose, fearlessness, sense of values , deep commitment to investigative journalism. Liev Schreiber had spent only two hours with him, they said, but captured his manner perfectly. I asked whether Schreiber’s understatedness was accurate, the very-dry dryness that almost seemed like humor. (“I think they’ll be interested.”)

“Marty is known for having a dry wit, although it comes out more now than then,” Pfeiffer said. “He’s a different person now. There’s a slightly softer, gentler Marty.”

“We warmed him up,” Robinson said. At a film-festival screening of “Spotlight,” during a standing ovation for the journalists, Baron had been the most choked up of any of them.

“He hugs now,” Pfeiffer said.

I told them that “Spotlight” had got me thinking about who we listen to and why. Baron had caused the Globe to listen to the abuse survivors in a more concerted way, and to publish their stories; that in turn got the priests, the laity, the bishops, and law enforcement to listen, as well as countless other survivors, many of whom came forward. Now “Spotlight” is advancing the conversation further. Investigative journalism, Rezendes and Pfeiffer said, allows for acute and comprehensive listening: reporters have the time and budget to engage with sources in a way that daily beat reporting doesn’t afford. And “Spotlight” had given them a good opportunity to evangelize for investigative journalism.

Rezendes said, brightly, “The L.A. Times recently announced that it was forming a local investigative team . I can’t say that came directly because of the movie, but the timing is certainly interesting.”

On my way out, Rezendes gave me a tour of the Globe library—the vast collection of clip files that the journalists consult, the photograph archives, the spiral staircase seen in the movie. Before I left, we talked about Pope Francis and his often disappointing response to the crisis, as well as the Church’s inflexible positions on the celibacy requirement, women in the clergy, contraception, homosexuality, and so on. I told Rezendes a theory I’d heard from the comedian and childhood-rape survivor Barry Crimmins : that Pope Francis is the Church’s way of changing the conversation without changing the Church. Rezendes looked thoughtful. “That makes some sense,” he said.

As I rode out of the parking lot, I looked back at the Globe’s huge front windows and saw its printing press, whirring away, as the sun began to set. It gave me a rush of feeling like the one I had toward the end of “Spotlight,” when the January 6th papers print and the Globe’s green trucks roll out for delivery: secrets converted to revelations, information made physical and delivered to the world.

Marty Baron had been thinking about listening, too. The next morning, on the phone, he said, “I hope that ‘Spotlight’ will cause us all to listen to people who are essentially voiceless, and listen to them closely.” Beyond that, he said, “I would hope that it would cause editors and owners to rededicate themselves to investigative journalism. And I would hope that it would cause the public to understand more fully the kinds of resources that are required to do it.”

One last question occurred to me: How was Baron’s actual meeting with Cardinal Law? In “Spotlight,” the meeting highlights Baron’s role as an outsider: Law encourages friendliness between the Globe and the Church, and Baron says that a paper functions best when it works alone. Baron told me, “I went out to meet him; it was part of meeting people in the community. I forget exactly how it came about. I got lost getting there”—MapQuest was involved—“so I was an hour late. I didn’t even know you call it his ‘residence.’ I landed on the property and asked where his office was.” They talked for a bit. “Frankly, he obviously knew that I was Jewish, because he mostly talked about the Middle East,” Baron said. “He brought it up. It was just basic chitchat. As we were walking out—this is not exactly the way it was in the movie—he went to the bookshelf and he pulled off the Catechism of the Catholic Church. He gave me the book, and he said, ‘This is what we believe.’ The book that’s in the movie is the book that he gave me. The same physical book. They offered to give it back to me, but I decided I didn’t need it.”

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More so than not, it seems that movies based on actual events have a tendency to romanticize their stories. Or, in the hopes of emotionally prodding their audience, they present an overly sappy version of those events. Thankfully,  Spotlight  doesn’t fall victim to either of these two trends.

By simply presenting a true story in its most raw form, it ends up being an entirely believable portrayal of one of the most important cases of the past 20 years.

Balanced, Yet Emotional

Spotlight  is about the investigative team of the same name, residing at the Boston Globe. The four-man (and woman) team divert their attention from daily news and only work on the most significant and impactful cases. From 2001 to 2002, that case is the Catholic church sexual abuse scandal, which concerned not only the priests involved but also the archdiocese of Boston, which was involved in covering up abuses by dozens of priests. By the conclusion, the true enormity of the case is revealed, to troubling results.

Though  Spotlight  seems like the type of film that could have been manipulative, considering its subject, it is surprisingly well-balanced. There is a careful blend of journalistic work and interviews with victims, which gives plenty of time to react between some of the more disturbing stories. Even when the victims’ stories are told, director Thomas McCarthy  thankfully doesn’t do anything to try to further provoke a reaction from viewers.

There is not even any background music in these scenes; instead what we are presented with is simply the truth, where a victim speaks his story and a journalist tries his best to get the details from them. It can be upsetting at times, but by presenting this in such a blunt fashion McCarthy  allows the stories to speak for themselves.

As a transition between either journalistic work or interviews with victims, the city of Boston is often presented, with all of its people going about their normal daily lives. In particular, children are shown, either running down streets or playing on playgrounds; blissfully unaware of the horrific activities that go on behind closed doors. Such emphasis shows just how unfortunately ignorant the world was of the Catholic church abuses at the time, and just how important it was for the spotlight team to present their story.

The Scandal of the Decade

Though I was younger at the time, I remember hearing about the Catholic abuse scandal cases in the early 2000’s. But it wasn’t until seeing Spotlight that I realized the full extent of them. These abuses have been going on for decades, involving priests and the archdiocese as well as lawyers, who profited from the payout settlements that the church would give to the families of victims.

Spotlight is also remarkable in that it does not paint the Catholic religion in its entirety as this dark entity. There are even attempts to provide explanations for why these abuses happen, without making it seem as if the church itself is evil – it is the specific people that committed these acts or attempted to cover them up that are immoral.

After all, the church has long-since been punished for this behavior, and for this reason I don’t believe that  Spotlight was created with a hugely biased agenda. This is, at its core, a story about journalism.

The News Team

Spotlight  was only ever going to be as good as its actors. The cast includes  Mark Ruffalo ,  Michael Keaton ,  Rachel McAdams ,  Liev Schreiber ,  John Slattery , and  Brian d’Arcy , among others. Such a wealth of talent is sure to present opportunities for awards, but two performances stand out chiefly among the rest: that of Keaton and  Ruffalo .

In the last couple of years, Michael Keaton has made a sort of comeback, especially with last year’s triumphant almost Oscar-winning role in  Birdman . Whereas in that film he played an eccentric, though, here he is much more measured. As the charismatic head of the spotlight team, Keaton is a strong, calm presence, and has perhaps the most noticeable arc in the film. By the conclusion, after working tirelessly on the obviously emotionally-draining case, he appears to have lost all of the bright spirits that he possessed at the start.

Though  Keaton  gives an admirable performance (as do all of the actors, for that matter), it is perhaps  Mark Ruffalo that leaves the most impact. In the past, I had never seen Ruffalo  as more than just a leading protagonist that you would find in either a rom-com or in the Avengers films.

Here, though, he gives a performance that you would more likely see from a character actor, and for some reason I kept thinking of Joaquin Phoenix  in  The  Master . Perhaps it is because the two have very unusual physical tics – here, Ruffalo  is awkwardly goofy, with some odd facial expressions and a very straightforward, to-the-point manner. He is also given some of the more emotionally engaging scenes, which will perhaps help Ruffalo gain that slight edge over his castmates come award season.

Spotlight  is the type of film that will likely engage audiences, at least those that can handle its sometimes upsetting material. The film delves into the famously controversial Catholic church scandal of the early 2000’s, but it also manages not to tread too far into sentimental territory.

In the process, it brings out some of the more impressive performances of the year with its ensemble cast, especially that of  Michael Keaton and  Mark Ruffalo . Overall,  Spotlight  is among the more captivating looks at the very interesting and unique world of investigative journalism.

What did you think of Spotlight? What are some of your favorite journalism films? 

Spotlight  will be released in the US on November 20, and in the UK on January 29, 2016. For more information on international release dates see  here .

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David is a film aficionado from Colchester, Connecticut. He enjoys writing, reading, analyzing, and of course, watching movies. His favorite genres are westerns, crime dramas, horror, and sci-fis. He also enjoys binge-watching TV shows on Netflix.

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Movie Review: Spotlight (2015)

• Howard Schumann
• Movie Reviews
• 7 responses
• --> November 18, 2015

“Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides” — William Shakespeare, King Lear

Except for unrelenting bulldogs like Seymour Hersh (who had to publish his latest article outside of the U.S.), true investigative journalism seems to have become as obsolete as the 8-Track Tape. Tom McCarthy’s (“The Cobbler”) Spotlight , however, reminds us of what it was and what it still could be. Set in Boston, the film is named after the Pulitzer Prize winning investigative unit of The Boston Globe which, in the years following 9/11, investigated the abuse of children by parish priests and the link of silence that existed between the Catholic Church and the Boston political and business community. It was a silence that allowed offending priests off the hook for their crimes, being transferred from parish to parish where they often re-offended.

In the film which follows the journalistic procedural style of such classics as “All the President’s Men,” Michael Keaton (“ Birdman ”) is Globe Unit Editor, Walter “Robby” Robinson. When the story circulates about the church’s kid gloves treatment of molester Father John Geoghan, the paper’s editor-in-chief Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber, “ Pawn Sacrifice ”), newly arrived from The Miami Herald and not bound by local “traditions” or religious loyalties, assigns the Spotlight unit to dig into the story. Robby and his team that consists of reporters Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo, “ Foxcatcher ”), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams, “ Southpaw ”) and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James, “ Time Out of Mind ”), overseen by deputy managing editor Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery, “ Ant-Man ”) set about the nitty-gritty work of tracking down the offending clerics.

Baron, however, wants to expose the systemic corruption in the church, not just individual priests and guns for top church officials such as Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law (Len Cariou, “ Prisoners ”). While the case is being built step-by-step, the film shows how some leads go nowhere while others uncover a wider net than imagined. Coming up against the church`s stonewalling, documents that have been made unavailable or have strangely disappeared, and a sleazy attorney in the D.A`s office (Billy Crudup, “ Public Enemies ”), the team reaches out to Phil Saviano (Neal Huff, “ The Grand Budapest Hotel ”) who heads an organization dedicated to supporting abuse victims as well as attorney Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci, “ Transformers: Age of Extinction ”) who represents victims that are suing the church in a class-action lawsuit and is an important source of information. It is the interviews with the victims arranged by Garabedian that constitute some of the film’s most moving moments.

Especially touching is the story of Joe, beautifully performed by Michael Cyril Creighton (“ Sleeping with Other People ”), an openly gay man who looked up to the priest as the representative of God and felt flattered by the cleric’s attention and the realization that it was okay to be gay but only later realized the priest’s culpable behavior. One of the film’s best lines is when Garabedian, speaking of the agreement within the church to maintain their silence, says, “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.” Another impactful scene delves into the mindset of one of the offenders. In Pfeiffer’s interview of ex-priest Father Ronald Paquin (Richard O’Rourke, “ Ghost Town ”), he admits to “fooling around” with the boys but says he never derived any pleasure from it.

Undoubtedly the boys did not derive much pleasure either. One psychologist claims the priests have remained emotional preadolescence, but this over-generalized speculation does not add much clarity to the debate. As the head of an outstanding ensemble cast, Michael Keaton performance has depth and sensitivity, Ruffalo brilliantly captures the almost obsessively focused dedication of Rezendes, and McAdams is able to astutely demonstrate empathy, allowing the subjects of her interviews to feel safe in expressing their feelings.

McCarthy delivers the story with restraint and a balanced approach, showing the indifference of Globe reporters who sat on pertinent information they had about the scandal many years ago. While Spotlight does not have much style and can drag, the strength of its performances and the clear presentation of its subject matter has a strong impact, allowing us to feel the pain of the children who still suffer the effects of abuse and reminds us that, as Kahlil Gibran put it, “Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.”

Tagged: church , cover-up , investigation , newspaper , scandal , true story

I am a retired father of two living with my wife in Vancouver, B.C. who has had a lifelong interest in the arts.

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'Movie Review: Spotlight (2015)' have 7 comments

November 18, 2015 @ 12:16 pm Halo Can Rising

Hello Oscar meet Spotlight. You’re going to be very chummy with it in February.

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November 18, 2015 @ 12:45 pm broduss

Very nice of review. Movies is tragic .

November 18, 2015 @ 12:59 pm Roman Chet

Powerful movie. Highlights the power of investigative journalism. something the buzzfeed generation knows nothing about. Ensemble cast does an amazing job too. I highly recommend everyone see it.

November 18, 2015 @ 1:37 pm Narco

Rachel McAdams shows she is not just a pretty face.

November 21, 2015 @ 8:39 am Frye

I invite you to watch her filmography of the past decade to see she is more than a “Mean Girl”.

November 18, 2015 @ 3:46 pm turn up tHE VOLUME

It’s a thoroughly engrossing film and I hope it gets recognized come awards season.

December 5, 2015 @ 1:43 pm Dillon

The film is eye-opening. The depths of corruption and deceit the church administered (and is probably still administering) is outstanding. The whole institution should be held in contempt.

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• DVD & Streaming

Content Caution

In Theaters

• November 6, 2015
• Rachel McAdams as Sacha Pfeiffer; Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes; Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron; Michael Keaton as Walter 'Robby' Robinson; Brian d'Arcy James as Matty Carroll; Stanley Tucci as Mitchell Garabedian; Billy Crudup as Eric MacLeish; John Slattery as Ben Bradlee Jr.; Len Cariou as Cardinal Law

Home Release Date

• February 23, 2016
• Tom McCarthy

Distributor

• Open Road Films

Movie Review

The Church, by definition, is a sacred thing. Holy. Its very buildings reflect that hallowed call: cathedrals built in the shape of crosses, steeples that point to heaven. Those inside are thought to be the hands and feet of God Himself, serving as His reflection in this fallen, fractured world.

But while God’s Church is sacred, its churches can be less so. Those who fill sanctuaries are products of the world, too. Broken and battered. Sometimes evil slithers under the door, tainting classrooms and pulpits, defiling the very altar of our faith. Our priests and pastors and leaders can fail. Our shepherds can turn into wolves.

It’s hard to imagine a more powerful institution in Boston than the Catholic church in 2001. People innumerable turn to the spiritual leaders there for help and solace, for peace and friendship. Through the diocese and its charities, thousands of people are fed and clothed, educated and spiritually nurtured.

Wayward priests? Well, they’re usually shuffled off elsewhere. And when one of those priests, John Geoghan, arrives in court, accused of molesting young boys, his circumstance draws sparse coverage from The Boston Globe . But even if the Globe does get interested in following the story, it’ll be difficult to do: Whatever the diocese knows of Geoghan’s behavior is sealed from prying eyes.

Then the Globe brings in Marty Baron as its new editor in chief, and he suggests that the paper’s journalists might want to poke around a bit more. Perhaps the Catholic church knows more about Geoghan and other pedophilic priests than it’s admitting. And Baron wonders whether Spotlight—a small division of Globe investigative journalists who dig into potential stories for months at a time—might be the appropriate team to handle it.

At first, Spotlight editor Robby Robinson balks. Spotlight, he says, has always been autonomous: It picks its own stories.

“Well,” Baron says slowly. “Would you consider picking this one?”

Spotlight would. And it eventually shows the world that, while the Church may be sacred, those who fill it and lead it can be anything but.

Positive Elements

Spotlight , the movie, makes for difficult viewing, particularly for those who hold priests and cardinals and the Catholic church itself in high regard. Indeed, the real-life scandal on which Spotlight is based is a difficult story for many Christians to acknowledge. But as painful as it is, it’s absolutely right to laud those who brought the outrage into the open. Secrets like these need to be exposed: As Luke 8:17 reads, “For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.”

The journalists covering the story—Robby, Sacha Pfeiffer, Mike Rezendes and Matty Carroll—work tirelessly to bring those hidden things to light. It takes months of groundwork, annoying persistence and a willingness to confront. It’s discomforting for the diocese to be thrown into the role of a villain here, as it pushes the journalists to just go along to get along. But these men and women refuse to do so, and I’d like to think that the whole of the Christian Church is healthier today because of their diligence and doggedness.

Spiritual Elements

Faith and religion are, of course, huge components in Spotlight . Throughout the movie, the power of the diocese is emphasized by massive cathedrals looming over seemingly every outdoor interview. Cardinal Bernard Francis Law is clearly one of Boston’s most powerful leaders—speaking of God’s love on national television in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, interacting with politicians and power brokers, hosting a customary sit-down with the new editor and giving him a “welcome” gift of a Catholic catechism. It’s a guide to the city of Boston, Law says. The message—and even implied threat—is resounding: The Archdiocese of Boston is not an institution to be trifled with.

The priests themselves were equally powerful in their own right. When a priest asks a young boy—a victim of abuse—to gather up hymnals, the lad says, “It’s like God asking for help.” Indeed, boys (and girls) were flattered and honored when a priest would show them extra attention. And when that attention became criminally inappropriate, confused children would rationalize it or excuse it. “How do you say no to God, right?” one victim says.

All the Spotlight reporters say they’re lapsed Catholics: Matty now attends a Presbyterian church, while Sacha says she sometimes attends Mass with her deeply religious “Nana.” But the story takes a toll on even this modicum of faith. Sacha says later she can’t go to Mass anymore; she looks at the priest and simply grows too angry. Mike says he left the Catholic church as a teen, but always imagined himself returning to the fold. Now, the idea of going back is unthinkable. “They knew, and they let it happen!” he exclaims. “To kids!”

But while Spotlight is unflinching in its criticism of the Archdiocese of Boston in particular and the Catholic church as a whole, at least one character—one only heard on the phone—says he still considers himself Catholic. The Catholic church is made of men, he says. But the Church—the real Church—is eternal.

We hear that Cardinal Law once called the “power of God” down upon the Globe , and how a week later the editor broke his leg while skiing. The first exposé is published on the Feast of Epiphany. “Seems appropriate,” someone says. We hear children singing “Silent Night.”

Sexual Content

The first Spotlight story suggests that at least 70 priests were involved in sexual abuse. The journalists suspect as many as 87, in line with predictions from a former priest who studied the presence of pedophilia in the priesthood. He alleges that 6% of priests abuse children, which would put the number of abusive priests in Boston at 90. This expert also insists that, despite their vows of celibacy, only 30% of priests are completely chaste.

While interviewing a victim, Sacha tells him that he needs to be very specific about what happened: Euphemisms like molested won’t cut it. As a result, the interviews, which we observe, can be both disturbing and crude. We hear briefly about oral and anal sex, amatory touching and strip poker games, all perpetrated upon minors.

There are no flashback scenes of the abuse.

Many victims break into tears. One admits he’s never even told his wife about the abuse. One effeminate victim says he’s gay, and that the priest was the first person who told him it was OK. One priest confesses to Sacha that he “fooled around” with young boys, but says there was no harm in it and that he didn’t get any sexual gratification from it. He adds that he was raped himself, so he should know what rape looks like.

Violent Content

We hear that some victims took their own lives as a result of the abuse. One man says a priest began his advances on him “just after my dad killed himself.”

Crude or Profane Language

A half-dozen f-words and nearly 25 s-words. We hear interjections of “a–,” “b–ch,” “b–tard,” “h—” and “p—.” God’s name is used in conjunction with “d–n” six or more times. Jesus’ name is abused close to 10 times, not including three or four uses of the stand-in “jeez.” We also hear several uses of the f-word euphemisms “frigging” and “freaking.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

We learn that many victims turned to alcohol or drugs after the abuse, and one man’s arms are covered with needle-scar track marks. Several ancillary characters smoke. Whiskey, wine and beer is consumed—with one guy, while drinking beer at a Red Sox game, quipping that drinking is a great way to deal with the game. Some priests would ply their targets with alcohol, we’re told.

The pedophilic priest scandal was not limited to Boston. Slides at the end of the movie document many of the larger communities where abuses have occurred and offending priests—instead of being charged in a court of law or, at the very least, booted out of the priesthood—were instead moved to other dioceses, where many went on to abuse again.

When I was a reporter for a daily paper in Colorado Springs, I had opportunity to interview victims of priestly abuse—three brothers, the oldest first victimized when he was 8 years old. They were in their 50s and 60s when I talked with them, and they still struggled with the aftermath. Only one of the brothers claimed to still be a Christian.

The abuse detailed in Spotlight sounded so familiar, so true: How the kids were almost awed to be the focal point of a beloved religious leader, how they were systematically groomed, how confused they were when the relationship turned sexual.

These coercive elements of power and faith make Spotlight a challenging, troubling movie—hard to watch, hard to get out of your mind. It sticks with you, as well-told stories do. As shocking stories do. It’s a horrific reminder of the evil that people can do. Any people.

Spotlight has its content issues, many of which are, sadly, integral to its central story. And it is undoubtedly a vehicle that will cause doubt among the faithful, disdain among those looking in from the outside. The sexual scandal revealed in part by the Spotlight team at The Boston Globe is, with certainty, a roadblock to religion for many. It was for the reporters who covered it, for many of the victims who lived it, for some who simply read and watched the story from afar. And it will be a roadblock for some moviegoers, too. This is not a film that encourages us to embrace the spiritual richness found in the churches around us. Instead, it encourages deep skepticism about how God’s plan for His people can ever be realized in a world so full of sin.

But maybe that skepticism is good. Even wise. The Bible itself shows us many a fallen leader, many a hypocrite. None of those wayward souls diminished the Light that is Christ. And if we are honest, we will realize that what we see in Spotlight is a mess of humanity’s making, not God’s.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Screen Rant

Scoop review: a timely journalistic story & excellent performances are let down by mixed messaging.

Scoop tries its hardest to be the next Spotlight, and though its subject is just as timely and the performances all strong, it comes up short.

• The cast shines in Scoop , especially Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew, delivering mesmerizing performances.
• The movie's fast-paced direction by Philip Martin keeps the story engaging and energetic throughout.
• Despite strong performances, the characters' mixed motivations in the pursuit of the big story lead to flawed portrayals.

As the media landscape continues to grow and the role of news in society becomes all the more prevalent, the world of journalism has become a hot topic for movies and TV. Whether it be the fictional character of HBO's Emmy-winning drama The Newsroom or the Best Picture Oscar-winning true story of Spotlight , the lens of journalists has become a compelling one to explore in the midst of the " fake news " boom and social media giving everyone a voice. While Netflix's Scoop looks to tap into these various themes, it comes up a little short.

Inspired by real events, Scoop is the inside account of the tenacious journalism that landed an earthshattering interview - Prince Andrew's infamous BBC Newsnight appearance. From the tension of producer Sam McAlister’s high stakes negotiations with Buckingham Palace, all the way to Emily Maitlis’ jaw dropping, forensic showdown with the Prince, Scoop takes us inside the story, with the women who would stop at nothing to get it. To get an interview this big, you have to be bold.

• The cast are all superb, especially Rufus Sewell, who disappears into Prince Andrew.
• The movie's direction is slick and very energetic.
• The central journalists' motivations are very mixed, and occasionally contradictory.

Based on Sam McAlister's biographical novel of a similar name, the movie is largely set in early 2019 in the wake of Jeffrey Epstein's infamous arrest for sexual trafficking of minors and subsequent suicide in prison. It centers McAlister and BBC's Newsnight host Emily Maitlis' efforts to secure an interview with former Prince Andrew to discuss his friendship with Epstein. Directed by Philip Martin and penned by Peter Moffat, Scoop strives to give an energetic exploration of this subject, but despite some strong performances, it ultimately falls victim to its mixed messaging.

Scoop's Journalists Never Quite Find The Right Motivations

Despite occasionally addressing the horrors of the subject, the characters feel driven by the wrong thing.

As the title of the movie suggests, the characters of Sam McAlister (played by Doctor Who 's Billie Piper ) and Emily Maitlis (brought to life by Sex Education 's Gillian Anderson) are always on the hunt to get ahead of their fellow journalists when it comes to a big story. Following their efforts to land one of the biggest interviews of both their careers with Prince Andrew is certainly compelling to watch, particularly as McAlister has to fight her blunt nature to convince the reserved royalty to agree to the interview or Maitlis carefully crafting her questions.

With a subject as sensitive as the one in the film, it's hard not to want to see a more pointed and critical standpoint from Maitlis and McAlister than the one present in Scoop .

The biggest issue with these characters, however, is that their motivations feel a little too self-driven. While getting a story as big as a royal's connection to a convicted sex offender is one that requires something of a cutthroat attitude, it rarely feels like the journalists in Scoop have a vested interest in the social importance of the story and more a desire to get it before anyone else can.

With a subject as sensitive as the one in the film, it's hard not to want to see a more pointed and critical standpoint from Maitlis and McAlister than the one present in Scoop . Though Spotlight is known for having taken some creative licensing, one of the most important things about the 2015 movie that made it so compelling to watch was its characters' drive to exposing the horrific crimes covered up by the Catholic Church in Boston.

Exhilarating Performances From The Cast Keep Audiences Hooked

Rufus sewell disappears into andrew while piper & anderson are gripping.

Despite some of the struggles with the moral depictions of the figures, the actors behind Scoop 's characters are all mesmerizing in their different roles. Piper is incredibly effective as the driven McAlister, wonderfully capturing the various layers brewing underneath the surface, including her refusal to take no for an answer or compromise in her values. Anderson similarly taps into the power Maitlis brought with her for her reporting, as well as the challenges of assuring she asked the important questions of her subjects without giving them an inch.

The real standout of the cast, however, is Rufus Sewell as Andrew. In his decades-spanning career, the Emmy nominee has played a wide variety of characters, though he is often known for his more villainous turns in the likes of The Legend of Zorro , Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and The Man in the High Castle . With Scoop , Sewell finds an intriguing middle ground in portraying the infamous former royal family member.

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While it would have been easy to paint a target on Andrew's back and turn him into a cartoonish figure, Sewell and Martin instead do their best to try and have the audience sympathize with him. Whether it's reflecting on his relationship with his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, or his desire to move beyond the Epstein situation, the star injects Andrew with some genuinely affecting moments. At the same time, the actor knows when to effectively imbue a sense of humor and acknowledge the faults of his alleged ignorance.

Martin's Direction Keeps Scoop Moving

Stylish direction & energetic pacing keep the movie from feeling sluggish.

Though it may falter thematically where Spotlight soared , one area that Scoop does excel at in comparison to the 2015 movie is its fast-paced direction. Martin takes full advantage of his various filming locations to keep the movie feeling energetic and engaging, utilizing various angles to effectively capture the shifts in dynamics. The film also builds tension in crucial scenes — from the initial pitch to Andrew for the interview to the interview itself. The latter feels all the more powerful as he lets the camera largely focus on Sewell as he balances the truth while avoiding self-incrimination.

While one could argue that the more deliberate pacing of Spotlight was just as intriguing as Scoop 's quicker one, the fast-moving nature of the story at hand blends well with its overall speed. But despite a very game cast and occasional spotlights of timely themes in regard to journalism, the movie never quite lives up to some of its genre predecessors as it presents flawed motivations for them all.

Reviewed by: Mike Klamecki CONTRIBUTOR

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Journalism movies can be a lot of fun (“His Girl Friday,” “The Paper”) or compellingly dramatic (“ Spotlight ”).

Running time: 102 minutes. Rated TV-14. On Netflix April 5.

Or neither.

That murky middle is seen in “Scoop,” a dollar store “Frost/Nixon” about Prince Andrew’s 2019 interview with the BBC in the wake of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking scandal.

Director Philip Martin’s film is not poorly made per se, but its efforts to make the behind-the-scenes scramble to get the Duke of York on TV exciting are for naught. 

The biggest hurdle, as far as entertainment is concerned, is that this really is a Goliath-vs.-Goliath story. The movie tries ever so hard to frame the BBC — the world’s largest broadcaster — as some sort of scrappy startup. Too bad the viewer knows that neither “B” stands for blog. 

Sure there have been layoffs at the company, and the current affairs program “Newsnight” is trying to up the ante with eye-grabbing stories. Producer Sam McAlister is worried she’ll lose her job.

Yet because of their still-significant resources, we don’t root for McAlister (Billie Piper), anchor Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) and editor Esme Wren (Romola Garai) so much as admire their professional abilities. They deserve awards for journalism, not a two-hour fictionalization.

The leading role here is McAlister, who has a tabloid sensibility that her colleagues sneer at. Nonetheless, she adamantly insists the show keep an eye on suspicious friends Epstein and the Duke of York. 

After Epstein’s arrest and later suicide in prison, they doggedly pursue an interview. McAlister goes for cocktails with the prince’s aide Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), who will only consider the proposal if Maitlis’ questions will stick to Andrew’s young entrepreneur program “Pitch the Palace” and not bring up the pedophile or his nefarious friend Ghislaine Maxwell. 

Hawes, throughout, has the worn-down look of feigned support — like that of a politician’s spurned spouse as her husband admits to an affair onstage.

Believing a sit-down could turn Andrew’s reputation around, Thirsk and the palace finally agree. Whoops!

“Scoop” thankfully perks up when Maitlis and Andrew face off for the tense, disastrous chat. 

To play Andrew, Sewell has been, well, enhanced with the help of prosthetics and makeup that reportedly took as long as four hours to apply. He plays the royal with the right combo of overconfidence and bumbling oafishness. 

Across from him, Anderson’s shrewd Maitlis is the opposite. Focused and steady, she grills the prince like only Agent Scully could — with brutal logic and confounding charm.

When the interview hits screens across the globe, and the response is resoundingly anti-Andrew, it’s supposed to be a triumphant finale. 

But because Prince Andrew never faced criminal charges (he settled a civil suit with Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexual assault), it’s not a blistering end.

McAlister orders a kebab, and the next movie in your Netflix queue begins — like it or not.

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Scoop Movie Review: Rufus Sewell’s role as the disgraced Prince Andrew makes it a worthy watch

S eldom do journalistic films in English match up to the peerless Spotlight . That is, in recent memory, at least. The film set a standard on how to make a hard-hitting narrative based on fact without being overly dramatic, and yet, differentiating itself from a documentary-style format. That balance between truth and engagement is hard to find. Adapted from Sam McAlister’s book, Scoop details the circumstances leading up to the infamous interview of Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, by the BBC, on his close ties with sex offender, sex trafficker and paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. And how the BBC pushed for one of the biggest televised shows presenting evidence of sexual abuse against Queen Elizabeth’s favourite son. It all began with an idea from Sam McAlister, one that took her on an unexpected path of seeking out the photographer who captured stills of the prince and Epstein at a park in New York in 2010 (nine years before the current events). In the larger context it is set (sex abuse by the powerful and wealthy, and holding them to account), parallels can be drawn with  She Said  (2022). That film dealt with the New York Times investigation that exposed Harvey Weinstein and his long history of sexual assault and misconduct against multiple women. Scoop references the former along with all the usual suspects (including Bill Clinton) and their murky connection to Epstein and girlfriend cum accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. Prince Andrew’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein stem from his friendship with the former British socialite. While Scoop is well narrated, with exceptional performances from Rufus Sewell, Gillian Anderson and Keeley Hawes, it is perhaps, in sections, too dramatic for its own good. It pales in comparison to the incredibly powerful documentary series,  Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich  and  Ghislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich , both of which make special mention (across episodes) of the Prince’s close association with the underage sex ring.

Director – Philip Martin

Cast – Gillian Anderson, Billie Piper, Rufus Sewell, Keeley Hawes, Romola Garai, Richard Goulding

Streaming On – Netflix

Rufus Sewell, as Prince Andrew, is the film’s undoubted standout. Embodying the major royal’s tiny mannerisms, his loose-cannon persona and general lack of propriety, the actor pulls out all the stops to render a role that will be remembered, even if the film happens to fade over time. Two scenes come to mind when you think of how well Sewell has immersed himself in the chaos that is the Duke of York. At a meeting in Buckingham, sitting across BBC’s Newsnight anchor Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) and Sam McAlister (Billie Piper), Prince Andrew, while considering an interview to tell his side of the story, makes an offhand remark (with a pronounced chuckle) that goes thus: “I don’t understand why everyone’s obsessed with my friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. I knew Jimmy Savile so much better.” Everyone in the room including his daughter (Princess Beatrice) and his long-time secretary, Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), is too embarrassed to make eye contact at the faux pas. In preparation for the interview, Amanda tells him not to say “that woman” (referring to a highly publicised photograph of him with seventeen-year-old Virginia Roberts and Ghislaine Maxwell). “Ms. Roberts. Please don’t ever say ‘that woman’. Ever,” Amanda instructs him.

The interview prep scenes – of the BBC and the royal think tank doing mock drills for the likely responses/questions and how to tackle them – are great to watch as both sides seamlessly merge with one another. Billie Piper (as Sam McAlister) is a bit of a disappointment if I were being completely honest. In the newsroom, she comes off as a rebel who likes to shake things up and challenge authority, but when she gets access to Buckingham Palace, she suffers from a fangirl moment. Not exactly the best look when the idea to expose the Duke of York for his alleged sexual abuse is on the line. The sequence in which Emily asks Sam not to hold her opinion back is one of Scoop’s best. The latter says, “Men like that hate it when they’re not heard. He’ll want to be heard.” And it is this exact approach that enables the BBC to get Andrew talking, tying himself in knots on public television. For the most part, though, you could argue that the casting for Sam’s role went wrong.

Anderson plays Emily Maitlis quite brilliantly. Her quiet yet firm manner ought to be the benchmark for TV anchors everywhere. Keeley Hawes is impressive as the Prince’s private secretary. Throughout, she has this look on her face that says “I don’t wish to believe any of the allegations against him, but I know them to be true.” Tough spot to be in for someone tasked with defending him against external attack and slander.

While it can get a tad melodramatic, Scoop tends to also exude a mildly comedic quality here and there…something that’s in direct contradiction to the heavy subject matter at hand. The Queen’s favourite son having close links to one of the most notorious sex offenders of our time is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly at all.

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‘Scoop’ Review: Prince Andrew’s Catastrophic Jeremy Epstein Interview Gets ‘The Crown’ Treatment in Unfocused Netflix Thriller

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It makes sense that Netflix leapt at the chance to adapt Sam McAllister’s “Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews,” as the story that screenwriter Peter Moffat has pulled from it feels like nothing so much as an episode from season eight or nine of “The Crown” — the most compelling thing about this film might be the case it makes in support of the streamer’s decision to end that series after season six. 

Is this, like so much of “The Crown,” a story about the monarchy’s failure to mature with the times? Is this a “Spotlight”-flavored story about a brilliant TV producer — Sam McAllister herself, played here by the great Billie Piper — who recognizes the gravity of Prince Andrew’s (alleged) misconduct, and wills the other women at “Newsnight” to make him pay for his (alleged) involvement in the assault and sex trafficking of underage girls? Is this a story about how charm, title, and power can blind people to the most obvious forms of moral rot, even when it manifests within themselves? 

The call doesn’t come until a few months before Epstein’s death, as Sam — a blustery single mom whose job is to book the kind of guests that other shows can’t — identifies Prince Andrew’s connection with Epstein as a potential “Newsnight” story. Her peers might scoff that it’s too scandalous and trashy for their hard news show, but the program is struggling to balance journalistic integrity with its desperate need for ratings, and Sam is convinced she’s found the perfect thing to split the difference. 

So, to the mild chagrin of her editor Esme Wren (Romola Garai) and “Newsnight” anchor Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson), Sam begins trying to make inroads with Prince Andrew’s loyal private secretary. Her name is Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), and she’s a decent and capable woman who refuses to believe the worst rumors about her royal boss, even if she recognizes that his public image is in dire need of rehabilitation — and even if Rufus Sewell, amusingly puffed up inside a simpering layer of entitlement and a pair of thick prosthetic jowls, plays the Queen’s buffoonish charmer of a son as an inbred momma’s boy who loves arranging the stuffed animals in his office almost as much as he loves paying underage girls for sex. 

Where McAllister and her colleagues at the BBC were afraid they might become the story if they didn’t finesse it right, this film — naturally directed by “The Crown” alum Philip Martin — is tasked with reminding us that the story couldn’t have been told without them. “Scoop” does what it can to tease some excitement out of the sleepless, 70-hour cram session when Prince Andrew and the “Newsnight” team retreat to their separate corners in order to prepare for the interview, but the most interesting thing about the process is how unseriously the Prince takes it. As Sam tells her tween son, a character who’s shoehorned into this script for the sole purpose of hearing this one line of dialogue: “Most people want to talk and are terrible at listening.” Some of them can’t even hear themselves clearly. 

After spending 60 years ensconced in the empire’s tightest echo chamber, Prince Andrew has lost all perspective as to the seriousness of this or any situation, and to how ridiculous some of his answers might seem in light of what Emily Maitlis’ questions will imply. “Scoop” is happy to see Prince Andrew as an easy punchline (his last appearance in the movie finds him standing butt-naked in his bathroom as tweets of doom begin to ding across his phone), but the film is never more textured or humane than when it focuses on Amanda’s dawning awareness of the pathetic man she’s enabled like a duty. This movie needed to have a character who’s effectively hearing Prince Andrew for the first time, because most of the people watching it on Netflix won’t have the same luxury.

Amanda becomes even more important because of how little there is for Sam to do once the interview is confirmed. She’s relegated to the background as the brunt of the responsibility is shifted onto Emily’s shoulders, and whatever momentum the movie has cultivated around her character arc is relegated to the background along with it. 

It’s true enough that good broadcast journalism is still an effective bulwark against the vicissitudes of the 21st century, but it doesn’t seem right for “Scoop” to so triumphantly settle on that moral as the big idea that might collect this movie into something more than news media cosplay. There’s no doubt the “Newsnight” team deserved a pat on the back after giving Prince Andrew enough rope to hang himself on national TV, but the victory lap they’re given here is wildly unearned at the end of a film that struggles to find a story beyond its own sensationalism. 

“Scoop” will be available to stream on Netflix starting Friday, April 5.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Scoop’ on Netflix, The Story Behind Prince Andrew’s Epic Epstein Fail

Where to stream:.

• Scoop (2024)

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Mary & George’ On Starz, Where Julianne Moore Is A 17th Century Social Climber Who Uses Her Second Son To Get To The King

Netflix’s ‘scoop’ delves into prince andrew’s teddy bear obsession in a weird, uncomfy scene, 11 best new movies on netflix: april 2024’s freshest films to watch, stephen colbert regretfully addresses his kate middleton jokes on ‘the late show’ after her cancer diagnosis: “that upset some people”.

Before the current hoopla-slash-controversy regarding the Royals , and before the one before that, as well as the one before the one before the one before that, the events of Scoop (now on Netflix) took place. That was 2019, when creepy Prince Andrew’s palling-around with pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein finally caught up with him. The film is based on the book Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews by Sam McAlister, a producer of BBC Two’s hard-hitting Newsnight program; the film zooms in on the infamous 2019 interview with Andrew, during which he didn’t come clean about the allegations of having sex with 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre, who was tied to Epstein. Andrew did, however, nuke his public standing by failing to acknowledge Epstein’s many victims, and by reeling off a bunch of stammering, unconvincing excuses ranging from “I don’t recall” to “I physically can’t sweat.” How and why, exactly, Andrew agreed to the interview in the first place is the key dramatic hinge of this slick, tense film.

SCOOP : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We open in New York City, 2010, with photographer Jae Donnelly (Connor Swindells) staking out Epstein’s mansion, waiting for Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell, still mostly recognizable beneath significant prosthetics and makeup) to emerge. Jae NEEDS this shot. He tails Andrew and Epstein through Central Park before he decides to scamper through a wooded area and aim his gigantic zoom lens on the two men. Chkchkchkchkchkchkchk goes the camera and there it is. Got ’em. A nice clear shot of their faces. A little context: Andrew and Epstein have been pals for years thanks to Ghislaine Maxwell, the former’s friend and the latter’s girlfriend. At this point, Andrew has been dodging a scandal in which he allegedly had sexual relations with Giuffre three times, and Epstein has already been convicted of sexual misconduct with a minor. Andrew, it seems, has stuck by his friend through tough times, and yes, I’m intentionally employing understatement to make both of them seem very, very gross, because they are, indeed, very, very gross.

Cut to the BBC offices. This being the 21st century, the media giant is staring down the barrel of significant layoffs, and no department or show will avoid the cuts. Now, I’ve been in that very same sword-of-Damocles situation at a news media company, and that’s why it’s easy to sympathize with Sam McAlister (Billie Piper), a lowish-level producer at Newsnight who not only is worried about her job, but also doesn’t really fit in (“She’s very Daily Mail,” one co-worker quips). With her leather pants and spiky heels, Sam doesn’t look the part of a typically bedraggled messy-hair-and-pizza-stains-on-their-shirt journo, but she knows the gig as well as any of them. She wouldn’t be good at her job if Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), Prince Andrew’s personal secretary, wasn’t one of her contacts, right? Sam reaches out and manages to connect with Amanda as a human being, while pursuing an interview with Andrew himself. The answer is no, of course, but Sam’s patient. Andrew’s been dogged by the Epstein association for years. Something has to break eventually.

And boy does it break. Epstein gets pinched once and for all by the FBI, then he dies by suicide in prison. And now all eyes are on Maxwell, and her old friend, who just so happens to be the son of the quing-quang-Queen of the United king-kang-Kingdom. Sam, producer Esme Wren (Romola Garai) and Newsnight host Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) sit down with Andrew and Amanda to pitch the interview. This is a rare instance in which Emily – who will get someone on the show and grill them in the pursuit of all-caps JOURNALISM, and look amazing in a short skirt while doing it – is nervous and intimidated. And so relatively low-ranking Sam seals the deal with an offer Andrew can’t refuse: Public opinion is shaping his story, and this is his chance to tell it himself. He thinks about it to the extent that he can think about anything, which might not be very much, and then he agrees. And Emily wears pants to the interview. They have to keep Randy Andy focused, you know.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Frost/Nixon dramatized a very famous TV interview between a disgraced bulldog of an ex-president and a seemingly overmatched journalist; Spotlight dramatized the shoe-leather doggedness of reporters ripping the lid off a sex scandal (the big, very ugly Catholic Church one) while their journalistic institution continues to erode with the changing times. Oh, and soon to Amazon Prime Video, another installment of A Very Royal Scandal , with Maitlis as a producer and Michael Sheen as Andrew.

Billie Piper Talks ‘Scoop,’ Tabloid Journalism, and the Amy Winehouse Movie: “It Feels Quite Soon”

Performance Worth Watching: Three fine performances provide Scoop ’s sturdy foundation: Piper as the emotional heart of the story; Anderson alternates between Emily’s steely persona and a woman vulnerable to nerves and propriety; Hawes as a woman who’s just now realizing that her loyalty has long masked her suffering. But the kicker scene belongs to Sewell in a darkly comic scene in which Andrew chastises a servant for not arranging his beloved stuffed animals on his bed to his liking. 

Memorable Dialogue: Sam seals the deal with Andrew: “An hour of TV can change everything. It’s like magic.”

Sex and Skin: A brief shot of Sewell’s prosthetically padded princely patoot emerging from the bath.

Our Take: Power of the Fourth Estate/Rah Rah for Journalism movies like Scoop endear themselves to critics for some reason; as they say, you get three guesses, and the first two don’t count. The subgenre risks being indulgent, but this film mostly avoids an air of self-aggrandizement. More notable is its glossy look and confident execution, director Philip Martin (a TV veteran of, most notably, The Crown ) getting the most from his cast and building considerable tension to the Big Interview, which proceeds with breathless suspense even though most of us already know how it plays out. 

The performances render the climactic sequence more as true drama than mere reenactment. Sewell and Anderson are fully engaged in the moment, a moment in which either participant could potentially destroy themselves. Emily can’t be too aggressive or accommodating, and Andrew perhaps doesn’t realize he needs to highwire it, despite, well, as a clueless and sheltered sort who unwittingly finds himself outside his bubble, being pretty bad at it. Their pauses and silences inflate, and hold, hold, hold , with an increasing sense of consequence as the interview progresses. This wasn’t a softball reporter throwing together a puff piece. It was a female journalist – with two other women by her side – asking difficult questions of a serial boor wielding significant influence and power. Emily, Sam and Esme understood the optics, substance and implications of the moment, and Andrew did not.

And so Scoop delivers a feminist missive with admirable understatement, and nicely coordinates it with a depiction of boots-on-the-ground journalism, the tact and negotiation that precedes hardline questioning, that it’s not always about eliciting a bald confession, but allowing one’s subject to hang themselves with tone, mannerisms and the things left unsaid. The film might’ve been better served as a nuts-and-bolts procedural; as it stands, it exists in a sort of neverland between that and a character-driven BOATS ( Based On A True Story ) drama. But it moves quickly, thoughtfully and suspensefully, touching on the dynamic among the Newsnight hierarchy (Emily’s posh eccentricity as the famous face of the show, Sam’s more grounded struggles as a small cog, and a single mother) and implying that Amanda’s loyalty to Andrew perhaps began to dissipate long before Sam made that first call.

The film nicely balances the greater and smaller politics of the situation without making any grandiose statements about the role gritty journalism has in taking down cads like Andrew. Eventually, about an hour in, it digs into the character stuff that shows the personal sacrifice it often takes to make the world at least a slightly better place, but it doesn’t get sentimental. No bootstrapping journo would want it that way, anyway.

Our Call: Scoop is a rock-solid, occasionally riveting drama underscoring journalism’s role in holding bad people accountable. STREAM IT.  

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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