PEOPLE don’t talk about priests sexually abusing young boys and girls; they whisper about it. The filmmaker behind this arresting film, Spotlight, takes the cue from that and works around a society that cannot face the sordid truths about the church it supports.
Boston is the elegant backdrop to the irony of sexual abuse perpetrated by those whose grace is to watch over children and not graze their hands over those painfully young bodies.
The houses are quiet affairs opening to front lawns, manicured and pristine, so public one never suspects the secrets tucked away in some of them. One can imagine these houses to be warm in winter, the other cold months cool and comfortable when things are sweltering.
At the center of the story is a team of journalists who display a bravado and detachment that makes their job truly compelling. They are not for advocacies or movements—at least, that’s the impression the plot makes. These are investigative reporters out explore in-depth an issue. They do not fight for truth and they do not aim to merely present the truth—they want to present all sides to the truth. This makes them dangerous to institutions out to preserve their bastion of authority, which, in this case, is the Roman Catholic Church in Boston in the United States.
And so the team starts to work. Initially, they are looking at some 11 priests involved in the crime. Then the number rises to 13. The reporters are shocked. But there is more investigating. The team gets to talk to a man, an ex-priest, now devoting his time to helping rehabilitate pedophile priests. The contact reveals that about 90 priests in the Boston area alone have sexually abused children.
The process of uncovering more cases comes to a halt because the records related to cases of sexual molestation of children by priests, including out-of-court settlements, have been sealed. The team appeals and wins: the records are made available to them.
If my narrative sounds so straightforward, linear and almost placid, it is because the film makes sure the process of uncovering the secrets of a powerful institution is really done in a very clear and clean manner—no judgment, no pontificating, no arm-raising. And it works.
The investigation is initiated by the news editor, Martin Baron. After the initial spade work, the team goes back to the meeting table and are excited with what they have uncovered. But Baron wants something else.
The new editor says it for us all: he wants a presentation of the issue to zero in—not on the crime and lust, or even perversion, of a particular priest, or on the impact the abuse has on victims, important as this may be—but on the system. To the team of investigative journalists almost giddy with what they have uncovered, Baron practically douses their enthusiasm with his curt instruction to focus on the kind of structure that allows priests to sexually abuse the boys and girls they are supposed to protect.
Indeed, the film triumphs because it is able to resist the temptation to work around the lurid details of sexual abuse. What it does is to allow us to enter this almost clinical office where the reporters work day and night without making us feel the stereotypical tension of a press room. It is when the reporters go back to their homes or wherever they are holed in that we get to feel the turmoil in their heart.
As the new editor, Liev Schriever is almost stern but not rigid. If ever there is rage in him, he does not show us. He calms down everyone and tells them to always take a break from the search for truth. His being Jewish looking under the rug of the Catholic Church becomes an issue.
These gray areas in the characters composing the newspaper team is one reason why we believe in these journalists. They are flawed personalities trying to make sense of what happened and are attempting to correct those mistakes.
Rachel McAdams is a smart female reporter, Sascha Pfeiffer, who has a grandmother who goes to Church three times a week. All the other reporters are Catholic, nominal and lapsed, as they describe themselves. Michael Keaton is Walter Robinson, efficient and busy. As the number of pedophile priests rise, his tension also goes up. He will tell his teammates why. If we want one reporter to be angry, then the character of Micahel Rezendes, as played by Mark Ruffalo, is the only catharsis we get from the film. It is all seething rage and discontent in us as we watch a lawyer, played by Billy Crudup, make a cottage industry out of child abuse. He settles cases for the family of victims.
In the end, it is easy to condemn the priests and wish that the fires of Hell swallow them all. But Spotlight also builds its truth on the unsaid, on the unnameable. When Baron says he is not very much into the offending priests but the system that has allowed the abuse, then the film is on its proper course. The priests who abuse were themselves abused. An old priest confidently, and with pathos, declares he knows he has not raped any children. When asked why, he responds: “Because I was raped.”
The film ends with a note that always captures the attention of the audience. One says Cardinal Bernard Francis Law resigned as Archbishop of Boston but the Catholic Church assigned him to a more important church in Rome. A list of places where sexual abuse perpetrated by Roman Catholic priests has happened is also presented.
The Philippines is on the list.
Personally, Spotlight winning the Best Picture plum in the 2016 Academy Awards must be one of the best news from the movie industry. The film brings us back to a very old kind of filmmaking, where the story takes the lead. And what a story!
Tom McCarthy directs from a screenplay written by himself and Josh Singer. The film is distributed by Open Read Films.
If you failed to see the film when it was shown commercially some weeks back, get a copy from some online store, like Amazon, and watch it.