Fish and Cherries Productions

Spotlight could be described two ways. One is as a docudrama about a news organization hunting down the stories behind Catholic priests molesting children in the Boston area. The other is as a neo-noir that forces us to ask the question, “Would you really want to know the truth or turn the other way?” Either way, it’s a spectacular story that pulls you to the edge of your seat the entire way through. Of course, this film runs into the same problem that The 33 did, in that we all know how the events played out. However, Spotlight throws a lot of curveballs at the audience, particularly how deep the problem went and how ever-present it was in the community undertones, like a splinter in everyone’s mind.

The acting is simply superb, with special mention to Mark Ruffalo who may earn an Oscar nomination for his performance. Everyone is able to sell the true horror of children being preyed upon by people they should be able to trust unequivocally. Oddly enough, there’s also a lot that went unsaid that came through very clearly, like how the cycle of molestation may have started with some of the priests’ priests or the air of anti-Semitic undertones when trying to discredit the new editor pushing the story. If I had one complaint, it’s that the movie needs you to memorize a LOT of names. There are so many different moving pieces and players that you sometimes feel you need a stage program to figure out who’s who when they mention them by name. That, however, is a very minor problem and the rest of the movie pulls its weight far too well to be a burden. It really does feel like a film noir in the modern age, minus the smoky rooms and the black and white coloring. I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes an Oscar front-runner, so you’d better hop on and see it as soon as you can.