Movie Review: Spotlight (English)

Tom McCarthy's Spotlight, in many ways similar to David Fincher's excellent (and dark) investigative-journalism film Zodiac (curiously Mark Ruffalo is featured in both), abounds in thrills. But not in a conventional sense. In a way, it's refreshing and rewarding to see meticulous painstaking research and journalism done the good old way undertaken by the Boston Globe investigative reporting team Spotlight pay off, exposing and uncovering the systemic child sex abuse in the Boston area by numerous Roman Catholic priests and the subsequent attempts at cover-ups by the Church.

Sticking closely to the truth of the matter and avoiding unwarranted diversionary personal backstories, director McCarthy weaves a psychologically complex slow-building story with religion as the all-permeating fabric, the end result being an unshowy film that's more about morals and scruples than it is cathartic (or revelatory for that matter), at the same time never for once resorting to cheap theatrics to drive the point home. In real life, the Spotlight reporters grew up Catholic, and the very fact that they had to set aside their personal belief systems, even at the cost of disrupting close relationships, for the larger good makes it even more impactful, and heartening, as I can rest easy knowing that long-denied justice has been served.