Review by
Jane Freebury
Just before
9/11, the Boston Globe was about to
publish revelations of long-term and systematic child sexual abuse by rogue
priests in the Catholic Church. The story was eventually published in 2002 and
the newspaper's investigative work honoured with a Pulitzer Prize. The impact
of the revelations still continues today, and it makes Spotlight a timely reminder of the importance of tough, investigative—and
old-fashioned—journalism as we revisit it today.
What was the
Church in Massachusetts doing to stem the abuse that was perpetrated for
decades by a small but significant percentage of its priests?
Did it say it was working to address ‘unacceptable’ behaviour? Not even that.
It was reshuffling the deck and moving priests on to other dioceses, as it did
here in Australia and other countries around the world.
A cracking
screenplay by West Wing writer Josh Singer
and a very talented cast including Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton
and Liev Schreiber makes for a rivetting drama. The director and co-writer Tom
McCarthy, who has some low-key, sensitive adult films like The Station Agent and The
Visitor to his name, has managed to handle this highly combustible material
deftly and still keep the drama extraordinarily immediate and real. I guarantee
you will feel dismayed, angry and outraged.
We already
know about the abuse, but the extent to which other institutions cooperated
with the Church is the important point here. Few if any in the city
establishment classes appeared willing to upset the applecart.
It took a
new editor at the Globe, Marty Baron (Schreiber) to get things rolling. He
arrived alone and his last known address was Florida. It just so happened that
he was Jewish and he asked the question that no one else seemed able to. Being
an outlier brought both advantage and disadvantage, however. Not being a Boston
native, he could see things for what they were and name them with impunity, no
love lost. But his outsider status could also be used against him. Keep an eye
out for the machinations of city elite.
The question
the film asks is how can serious crimes against children remain undetected year
upon year? The pattern the journalists found explains. The victims were selected
because they were perceived unlikely to tell on anyone. If they were socially
disadvantaged they were fair game. If they came from single parent families,
were emotionally vulnerable and likely
to be overwhelmed even by the unwanted attention of a man of god, they were
fair game. Spotlight is, you might
say, a creepy experience.
Using cool
judgement, director McCarthy keeps the mood calm, balanced and very low key. Spotlight is a powerful statement on one
of the most terrible crimes of the last century.
Alex Gibney's
brilliant documentary about child abuse in the Catholic Church, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of
God in 2012, was another fine film on these issues. It never got hysterical
either. A brief moment in Spotlight when
Ruffalo’s tenacious journalist Mike Rezendes loses it in righteous anger, somehow
gives expression to what we feel and want to express. The actor has made interesting
perceptive comment about Spotlight in
a recent Guardian interview.
The church
hierarchy had, as we now know, been putting priest perpetrators on ‘sick
leave’, hiding them away ‘unassigned’, and eventually moving them on to other
dioceses where the abuse began all over again. Lawyers who they hired to assist
with victim compensation—a meagre $20,000—obliged by keeping no records. And
the Globe itself passed up on the
story when it first arose, though it got it right in the end.
4 Stars
Also published at www.janefreeburywriter.com.au
