Director: Tom McCarthy
Writers: Josh Singer, Tom McCarthy
Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian d'Arcy James
Runtime: 128 mins.
2015
I can't think of anything special about Spotlight. That sounds like a slight but in this case it is not. As a friend put it on facebook, 2015 has been a great year for solid, classical filmmaking. Spotlight may be the foremost example of this, a procedural drama low on panache but high on unshakable craftsmanship.
The film follows the Boston Globe's Spotlight team of investigative reporters through every step of their journey down the rabbit hole of child molestation in the Catholic Church. The ordeal begins inauspiciously enough, with the team digging around an old story while trying to remain sensitive towards the power and respect that the Church commands in their city. As threads start to unravel, it becomes clear that this is not an isolated incident, but rather a wide-ranging systemic cover-up. The scandal grows, and the team finds that they have poked an enormous cultural hornets' nest.
