Spotlight

There’s a reason why Spotlight is on the Oscar probables list. It has a riveting story, a devastating subject that revolves around questions of morality and ethics, confrontations, and superb performances. In 2002, the Spotlight investigative team at The Boston Globe published a scalding expose on child sex-abuse by Catholic priests and cover-ups by the Church. It won the team a Pulitzer. Director Tom McCarthy, who co-w­rote the script, picks a cast who do justice to the original team. Michael Keaton is outstanding as Spotlight editor Walter Robinson, as are Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) and Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams). The tension revolves around the prospect of taking on the powerful Boston Archdiocese and also, as Globe deputy managing editor Ben Bradlee Jr (John Slattery), cautions, its Irish-Catholic readers. It is left to outsider Martin Baron (Liev Schreiber), the paper’s new editor, to light the flame. He smells a conspiracy and turns Spotlight loose. This is old-fashioned, shoe leather reporting, digging into sealed records, tracking victims, exposing the politics behind the cover-up. Internal clashes are inevitable, as reporters desperately want to get the story first. This is a landmark film, which shows us the best of the struggling print media and offers compelling reasons for it to stay alive and relevant.