Review: Spotlight (2015)

4 Responses to Review: Spotlight (2015)

1. Jessie says:

   November 5, 2015 at 5:07 pm

   Great review! I thought the Boston atmosphere was very essential and informative and I’m glad it was authentic. I enjoyed this one a bunch, but I found myself wishing it was just a touch nerdier or narrower, even more focussed on the investigation. Maybe with Fincher meticulousness (although not obsession). Apparently I want to see Rachel McAdams look through church directories in real time. I really did enjoy the class stuff, though. It’s a small town if you know the right people, but if you don’t you may as well live on Mars.

   I LOVED Schreiber. That guy is the best. I keep forgetting how tall he is. And the whole time I just wanted Ruffalo’s Catholic mother to come in and tell him to stand up straight.

   Being unfamiliar with this particular story (shocking to think how recent this history is) I kept expecting some nefarious reveal — that Slattery was burying the past stories or that Ruffalo was hiding his own history of abuse or that d’Arcy James would go vigilante or something — and I really appreciated that the script just let it be about professionals rectifying past mistakes.

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   • sheila says:

     November 6, 2015 at 10:17 am

     Jessie –
     I’m so excited to hear you saw it!

     // Apparently I want to see Rachel McAdams look through church directories in real time. //

     hahahaha You know, me too. A film that really gets nerdiness – and how it can be heroic … has my heart forever. And “nerdiness” is unfair – it’s really just COMPETENCE (that word again!!) at what you do. and doing it under the gun.

     I just loved that “searching the church directories” sequence. So crushingly boring and never-ending for the participants – but also urgent and important. It’s how they put the cycle together. Amazing!

     // It’s a small town if you know the right people, but if you don’t you may as well live on Mars. //

     Boston is a really unique city that way. The history of the place is palpable. You literally cannot take one step without treading on a patch of history. It’s a port city – which means diversity, bustle, in and out, ships, all that – giving it its immigrant flavor – but the Catholic thing … I mean, you might as well be in Dublin at times, with how “the Church” is felt in the community. (I loved that everyone called it “the Church” because there is no need to say “the CATHOLIC Church” – not in Boston, anyway.)

     Boston’s traffic patterns are also INSANE and if you are a newbie to the city it could drive you to distraction. New York is modern: it’s set up on a grid. You can never get lost (at least not if you know how to freakin’ COUNT.) But Boston? You are on your own.

     Spotlight was so good in getting that – and yes, Schreiber was EXCELLENT. What an understated performance, yes? I need to go back and study it. He was so quiet. It was left to the Spotlight team for the histrionics and emotion – he was just this steady steely intelligent presence. And yeah, it’s the outsider who can come in, look around, and say for sure, “You guys. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. You are all USED to it so you can’t see it …”

     // And the whole time I just wanted Ruffalo’s Catholic mother to come in and tell him to stand up straight. //

     hahahahaha

     You know, it’s interesting you mentioning the expectation of something “nefarious” – I had a similar thing. Now obviously the Boston Globe fucked up – they had all the pieces, they failed to put them together, and I think, too, the film is clear that there was a lot of confirmation bias going on in the newsroom – not to mention the passive acceptance that the Catholic Church was too big a fish to fry. (It reminded too, a little bit, of The Insider – taking on the tobacco industry was something nobody wanted to do – for good reason. Similar to Scientology too – when the cult had power, I mean, not now. They could sue you into bankruptcy, bury you in litigation, assassinate your character – they were so lethal and effective that critics and the press – most importantly – were like, “It’s not worth it.”)

     But yeah: it was human error. The story was too big for anyone to see. The evil too huge to comprehend. I mean, I remember those days so well, since my parents – even though they lived in Rhode Island – always subscribed to the Boston Globe too – it was their home paper, they had grown up in suburbs in Boston. and day after day after day … it was this nightmare of revelations. The priest in our local parish (a wonderful man) talked about it in sermons – there were meetings held at the church to talk about it – people needed to vent. There are good priests, of course – and priests were among the first (outside of the victims, I mean) to express concerns. And they were silenced or moved to other parishes, etc.

     I think Slattery has one line like – “Nobody could see the whole picture” – as they were arguing about what the Globe could have done better.

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     • Jessie says:

       November 11, 2015 at 7:26 am

       I just loved that “searching the church directories” sequence. So crushingly boring and never-ending for the participants – but also urgent and important.
       Me too! And I have to give the director McCarthy some props because it would be a damn difficult job to make such sequences not be dishwater. And he didn’t have any of the spooky meeting-in-secret tension to draw on like Pakula in All The President’s Men — although I don’t think he got to the remarkable places that Pakula did particularly in the newsrooms there.

       And “nerdiness” is unfair – it’s really just COMPETENCE (that word again!!) at what you do
       lol with me it’s just pure nerdiness. This is something that’s come up a heap for me lately. When David Simon’s Show Me A Hero came out this year I was like, this is good, but what it really needs is more scenes where people sit around a table and discuss urban planning philosophy. But yes. Slow and painstaking and COMPETENT investigating was one of the deepest thrills of The Wire. I love that stuff to death.

       it’s the outsider who can come in, look around, and say for sure, “You guys. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
       I love how he made absolutely ZERO effort to assimilate. Except maybe that fundraising party? Lol. The room where it happens. But mostly he was just like, guys, this is your town, your community. You wanna serve it?

       A line that’s really stuck with me is that it takes a village to abuse a child. The levels of complicity were astounding, the open acknowledgement. Really goes to show how easy it is to acquiesce to and participate in a broken system and how difficult it is to imagine other possibilities.

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       • sheila says:

         November 11, 2015 at 10:21 am

         // I love how he made absolutely ZERO effort to assimilate. Except maybe that fundraising party? Lol. The room where it happens. But mostly he was just like, guys, this is your town, your community. You wanna serve it? //

         Hahahahaha I hadn’t really noticed that – or, I did, but I hadn’t put it quite that way. Totally! He made a vague stab at assimilation, by reading a book about the Red Sox, but other than that, yeah: Outsider. He didn’t give a shit. He was there to run a “local” paper.

         // The levels of complicity were astounding, the open acknowledgement. //

         I know. I liked John Slattery’s journey – if anyone, he put up the most resistance. It was incomprehensible to him. (As it was to most everyone who has a normal moral compass.) But eventually … he couldn’t ignore the facts. He became a journalist – not a Catholic man who worked in a newsroom – but a journalist. Spotlight was really good at showing the diverse reactions of those journalists to the revelations – D’Arcy James running around his neighborhood like a maniac, Rachel MaAdams glancing sadly at her devout grandmother, etc. Very personal issue.

         It just makes you shake your head at the evil, as well as the ignorance in the organization that any of it WAS evil. Or, they knew it was evil, but they didn’t care. Either way. SIN.

         That entire year I remember our family discussions with people saying over and over, almost desperately, “Cardinal Law has got to go.” Not that Law stepping down would solve the problem, but as the head of this shit-storm, as the engineer of it, we needed him to step down. And this from a family of Boston Catholics. In general, my experience with Catholics around that time – was not a “close the ranks” experience – although I know there were some Catholics who went that route (similar to politicians who brush off wrongdoing as long as it is done by a member of their own party.) But to all the Catholics I knew, those months – painful for so many reasons – were pierced with this feeling of Oh my GOD, that man has GOT to go. It’s like Joe Paterno – not sure if word of that scandal reached you, but it was huge here in the States.

         Again: you’re in charge of a system that condones evil and condones one of the worst crimes in humanity, preying on children. On some level, you had to know what was going on, and therefore you condoned it and allowed it to continue for decades. You may not have perpetrated the crimes yourself, but you are also responsible. You cannot be trusted in a position of power. Step the hell down.

         Unfortunately, with the Paterno thing, people stuck up for him because they were football fans and they were morons. Someday we’ll get a film about that scandal.

         The scandal continued to rock Boston, even after Law stepped down – and Boston is still scarred – but I remember the exclamations of “It’s about TIME” when the headlines of Law stepping down broke. It STUNK, the whole thing stunk to high heaven, rotten in state of Denmark, stench stench stench.

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