SummarySpotlight tells the riveting true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation that would rock the city and cause a crisis in one of the world’s oldest and most trusted institutions. When the newspaper’s tenacious “Spotlight” team of reporters delve into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, their year-long inves...
SummarySpotlight tells the riveting true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation that would rock the city and cause a crisis in one of the world’s oldest and most trusted institutions. When the newspaper’s tenacious “Spotlight” team of reporters delve into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, their year-long inves...
A snapshot of what happened at a particular time and place and doesn't try to glamorize its subjects or make any larger points about what it all means. By refusing to do so, by celebrating the process over the outcome and the work over the reward, it becomes a special experience, a movie that matters.
I am not Catholic (Orthodox) and not really someone who goes to church or has saint icons or crosses all over the place but this story truly reminds people how corrupt the world is.
Even someone considered to be the symbol of good does something unspeakable as sexual misconduct on children.
Like it was said in the movie "Its the whole country, its the whole world!"
The casting is on point. Michael Keaton killed it.
Flawless! #2 Greatest Film All-Time Behind ‘The Godfather’
Tom McCarthy's 'Spotlight' portrays the Boston Globe's investigative articles on the Catholic Church's cover-up of pedophile abuse by a significant percentage of its priests in the Boston area.
The movie wastes no time in it's 2 hours and 9 minutes with on-the-edge-of-your-seat pacing. Every interaction is meaningful, every character believable, as layer after layer of the Catholic churches systemic cover-up is unfolded. It is the best newspaper movie ever produced (#2 All-Time Greatest Film).
But the underlying relationships of the "Spotlight" investigative team that thrives as a proxy family is the element that makes this movie so appealing.
Idealic respect shared between the characters and the professional bond that the diverse personalities have for each other is laid out by McCarthy over the course of the movie. Like close siblings whose love and common bond allow for overlooking each others idiosyncrasies and grow stronger under duress, the characters navigate the religious, social, community, political and legal challenges of bringing such an impacting story to press.
'Spotlight' is flawless in execution. Every facet (writing, casting, acting, direction, cinematography, and editing), mixes together to yield 2015's Best Picture, and resides at the very top of my list of best films since 2000, #2 All-Time, and the ONLY film to ever make my "Top 100 Greatest Films of All Time" in its first year of release (moved up into Top 25 the next year and just became eligible (min. 5 years from release date) for my Top 5 List>
1. The Godfather
2. Spotlight
3. Lawrence of Arabia
4) The Shawshank Redemption
5) Citizen Kane
Starring:
Michael Keaton
Mark Ruffalo
Rachel McAdams
Liev Schreiber
John Slattery
Brian d'Arcy James
Stanley Tucci
71 Awards:
2015 Awards include: Academy Awards for Best Picture and Original Screenplay (out of 6 total Oscar nominations); Critic's Choice Awards for Best Picture, Original Screenplay, and Best Acting Ensemble; SAG Award for Outstanding Cast/Ensemble.
Gross Sales/Theatre Attendance:
Distributed/opened in November, 2015 primarily through "Art Movie" houses, and in a blockbuster year that included Stars Wars, 007, and Jurassic franchise films, Spotlight barely cracked the top 100 domestically In 2015.
Since 2015, however, its rental/pay-for-view and at-large streaming numbers have done quite well, with a 300% increase in gross revenue via both positive word of mouth testimonials and critics' praises, making the film financially relevant.
'Spotlight' continues to return profits to it's investors, and gives evidence that great films are in high demand by audiences, can succeed financially, and make excellent investments for the movie industry at large.
Spotlight doesn't call attention to itself. Its screenplay is self-effacing, its accomplished direction is intentionally low key, and it encourages its fistful of top actors to blend into an eloquent ensemble.
It’s a more subtle, damning film for implicating the media – as much as the church, the courts, the legal profession and other Boston institutions – in the systematic, wider cultural cover-up it describes.
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.
This material cant help but be interesting, even compelling up to a point, but its prosaic presentation suggests that the story's full potential, encompassing deep, disturbing and enduring pain on all sides of the issue, has only begun to be touched.
This is one of the most interesting films I have seen in recent times. The script is based on real facts, namely the journalistic investigation that publicized the scandal of child abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, USA. However, the film goes further and even establishes links between these investigation and similar scandals that have happened in other countries.
I am a historian, but I am also an employee of the Catholic Church. I am not a priest, but I work with many priests, and I have some friends in the priesthood. So, I have a vision of the interior of the Church that most people don't have. And the Church, in spite of being universal, is also fragile and has an increasing fear of what can be said about her. It is understandable: the strength of the Church resides in people who go to Mass, make offerings, help with charitable works and collaborate with her. And the truth is that, despite the weight that the Church still has, it has been questioned in traditionally Catholic regions such as the Mediterranean, Latin America and parts of the USA. There are fewer baptisms and marriages, the social weight of the clergy is inferior, there are fewer candidates for the priesthood and the number of practitioners has decreased. The Church is strong and powerful, but it is increasingly isolated and discredited. This is a concern for the Catholics and yes, the fear of public opinion explains the way the Church tries to solve internal problems with minimal waves. The film shows the way a cardinal hid what was going on... and he was really wrong. What he should have done was to suspend the priests and allow them, not as clerics, but as citizens, to be held accountable for their actions. If they were condemned by civil law, they would also be punished by canonical rules. That would have been ideal, but always letting the man, and not the priest, be responsible for his actions.
The issue of celibacy for priests is addressed in the film as one of the causes of child abuse, and the film really ties things together as if there were a relation. I do not believe that. It is true that priests were never exemplary in chastity, but it is also true that this has been a rule imposed on the clergy for over a thousand years and any seminarian knows that he will have to comply with it or, at least, be discreet when he breaks it. The Church does not expel priests who fall into temptation with a woman, but invites them to think about what they want and demands that they assume their responsibilities. We are all sinners, but what the Church requires is consistency and honesty. As for child abuse... there is no justification for what is unjustified. Evil can be forgiven, never justified. To justify evil is to give it a basis for making it less bad. Justifying child abuse with celibacy implies thinking that this will end if the priests get married. But there are a lot of married men who abuse children, even within their families. The truth is simple: there are people who have wrong or criminal sexual instincts and inclinations, and some of these people have sought refuge in the Church. But it has never been the only or the main escape for people like that, and they will continue to exist with or without a celibate clergy.
The film has an excellent cast where I would highlight, for the quality of the work done, the names of Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAddams and Liev Schreiber, which brought the investigative journalists of Spotlight magazine to the Boston Globe. Another actor I liked to see here was Stanley Tucci, in the role of a lawyer who worked with the accused priests.
The film took very good advantage of the original material and the real facts on which it is based, and creates a wonderful story by the way it follows the efforts of journalists to discover more and more about the abuse of minors and the position of the local cardinal. The pace, which is deliberately slow, allows it to build gradually without losing the thread of the story. The absence of great effects, a showy cinematography or an overly incisive soundtrack allows us to focus on the story and the work of the cast. And that was a conscious and intelligent option of the production, which knew how to have at hand what was necessary to build an excellent film, dispensing with the stylistic artifices and giving almost a documentary note to a film that is largely fictional.
This film's lack of flair makes it feel more like a Wikipedia entry than a piece of art. The only reason that this movie is compelling is because of the inherently interesting nature of its source material. There is barely anything that the director or actors do to enhance the film, or add flavor to it. It relies too heavily on the viewer's interest in the events it recounts, and it doesn't make any attempt to create further intrigue.
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Best Performance: Mark Ruffalo
By far the best movie of it's year Spotlight's veteran and talented cast give us an amazing detailed look at one of the biggest church scandals. Gripping and moving for it's entire duration spotlight reminds of how an independent and fearless press now more then ever, is so important.
Important story, and think this only won Best Picture because of the subject matter. The acting was over the top - of course we are angry - but I felt never felt an emotional connection or outrage through the characters.
I saw this movie with my mom and we both agreed that is was bad. It did not grab my attention. I don't really understand why everyone loves this movie. Exposing the Catholic Church has never been so dull. One of the worst movies of the year.
