Shining a light into moral darkness

Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo in a scene from "Spotlight." Image courtesy Open Road Films.

The remarkable and thrilling “Spotlight” could have taken the easy way out in its retelling of a deep, complicated investigation into a series of child abuse cases perpetrated by Catholic priests and hidden by church officials. Instead of taking the easy route and keeping the blame on the church, the film instead shines a metaphorical light at a society that quietly condones the behavior; as the film explains it, the lawyers, cops, community and even the newspaper investigating the allegations are to blame. From the film’s perspective, it takes a village to fail a child.

The newspaper in question is the venerable Boston Globe, the most well-known newspaper in New England. After a quick trip to a police station in 1976 – a scene used to set up the ensuing reporting – “Spotlight's” action picks up in the Boston Globe office circa 2001 amid a time of great tumult for the paper. New editor Marty Baron (Liev Schrieber) is already talking budget cuts to reduce the expenses of a paper losing its readership steadily, and those cuts could include the titular Spotlight team, an secret investigatory unit overseen by Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery) and consisting of editor Robby Robinson (Michael Keaton) and reporters Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian D'Arcy James).

The Spotlight unit usually selects its own stories to dig into – those stories are then kept secret even within the Globe's newsroom – but Schrieber pushes an article about alleged sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. The proposition is met with some resistance from the staff, many of whom grew up Catholic and are cognizant of the church's influence in the area; as one character points out, a majority of the Globe's subscribers are Catholic. Still, the Spotlight team inquires about the allegations, talking with victims, a psychologist, and lawyers involved with settlements involving the church (Jamey Sheridan and Billy Crudup). They also work with an eccentric attorney (Stanley Tucci's Mitchell Garabedian) who represents a number of clients abused by priests and claims he has proof the scandal reaches to the head of the city's diocese, Cardinal Bernard Law (Len Cariou). The reporting starts off with a handful of priests, but the journalists find themselves going down the proverbial rabbit whole as the research deepens and the number of priests involved increases exponentially.

The story is horrifying in its nature, and “Spotlight” never pulls its punches when discussing what exactly happened to these victims. The details as described in the film are heart wrenching, as is the outline of how the priests preyed upon the children. As one character says while listing the step-by-step details of how his priest groomed him, “How do you say no to God?” The statement alone is terrifying, as is the empty promises made by church officials in that very first scene at the police station in 1976 after a parent is dissuaded from pressing charges against a priest: “This will never, ever happen again.”

And yet it does, again and again and again and again for decades and to hundreds of children throughout the greater Boston area. “Spotlight” offers all of its sympathy to the victims of those actions; everyone else, however, has blood on their hands. The church is castigated repeatedly for allowing the abuse to happen and shifting priests from one parish to another to hide the allegations; the state is guilty of looking the other way whenever allegations arose; attorneys representing the church and the victims share guilt for making money from the settlements; and the community deserve scorn for pretending the problem wasn't there. Even the Globe is called out in “Spotlight” for ignoring evidence sent to it years before the investigation actually started.  

Director Tom McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer do marvelous work setting up the atmosphere in which deference to the church is mandatory so they can show how much effort is required to report on this story. They focus on the process of breaking through the wall that covers basic research and people skills to political haggling, bartering and outright bullying when needed. The process makes for fascinating cinema because of how difficult it can be to get people to do the right thing.

Not that the reporters are men and women filled with an overabundance of courage and bravery; “Spotlight” portrays them as clever, resourceful professionals committed to doing their job and nothing more. They are human, prone to fears of their family’s safety and outright anger as the revelations become more and more horrifying. This is an issue that is worthy of righteous anger, but “Spotlight,” to its credit, never succumbs to that temptation; its mission, like the one the reporters take, is to tell the story and let the facts speak for themselves.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 128 minutes

Genre: Drama

Ask Away

Target audience: Newspaper nerds and anyone down for a well-executed investigatory flick.

Take the whole family?: Although the film isn't graphic about the content, the information it does provide will bother younger kids. Early teens and older should be fine though.

Theater or Netflix?: Good enough to justify a theater trip.

Academy Award odds?: It's among the favorites for the top prize – although a ton can and probably will change after the nominations come out – and director Tom McCarthy could get a nomination for directing and for Best Original Screenplay alongside co-writer Josh Singer. There's a good shot Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton become finalists for Best Supporting Actor, and Rachel McAdams might sneak in for Best Supporting Actress. All are uniformly well deserved nominations.

Watch this as well?: “All the President's Men” is the most obvious companion piece. However, definitely add in “Zodiac” – among the best movies to come out this millennium – and the smaller-scoped “The Paper” (also featuring Keaton) to your journalistic viewing list as well.

The truth will set you free... or not

Cate Blanchett stars in "Truth." Image courtesy Sony Pictures Classic

What I hate most about journalism as an industry is how self important it can be. Most reporters are doing their jobs for what are ostensibly the correct reasons (providing information to the public, keeping an eye on the government's actions, etc.), but there is a huge amount of ego involved that's carried by the fact news people have a legitimate effect on culture based on what they decide to cover. Good journalists know when to step aside and let the story be the story; bad journalists are lazy and allow themselves to become the story to make them feel just a tiny bit better about their station in life. The film “Truth,” then, is the product of people who would be bad journalists if they practiced in that field. It’s a movie that pretends to be about discovering what its title is and investigating an issue of grand importance to outrage the audience. In reality, it’s ersatz reporting to justify a pity party for poor Mary Mapes.

Who is Mary Mapes? She's a former television news producer canned by CBS about 10 years ago for a report about former President George W. Bush's seemingly spotty record in the Texas Army National Guard. Mapes, as played by Cate Blanchett, is a gravedigger, a woman who lives to sift through information in order to discover the titular truth inside of it. The film essentially starts off by acknowledging her bona fides via a report on “60 Minutes” in 2004 about the torture at Abu Ghraib, which would later win a Peabody Award (a fact the film points out in its postscript).

Blanchett follows that up with a story that could have a heavy influence on that year's presidential election; allegations that then-President Bush was granted special treatment to join the Texas Army National Guard in 1968 so he wouldn't have to fight in Vietnam. She assembles a small, crack team of reporters (Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace, and a barely used Elisabeth Moss) to investigate, which results in confirmation from former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes (Philip Quast) that strings were pulled for Bush and other Texas elites. Most notably, the reporting leads to a collection of papers (later called the Killian Documents after supposed writer Lt. Col. Jerry Killian) offered by mysterious retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett (Stacy Keach) indicating the future governor of Texas went AWOL during his time with the guard.

The team puts a piece together outlining the allegations, and the report is aired on an episode of“60 Minutes” hosted by venerable anchor Dan Rather (Robert Redford) approximately two months before the election. Backlash against the story begins shortly following the airing, with websites and other media sources alleging the documents CBS used were forgeries generated using Microsoft Word. With their backs now against the wall – and media members with conservative and liberal leanings after them – Blanchett and her crew must defend their reporting and the heart of the story against ruthless jackals and jackanapes.

At least, that's how “Truth” presents the story, probably because the film is based on a book written by Mapes. Writer/director James Vanderbilt appears to take her word as gospel, waving off almost every criticism of the report as attacks by people motivated by politics and sexism. Blanchett's Mapes is let off the hook repeatedly, with the film emphasizing again and again that she did her darndest to report the truth for the betterment of the American people. She's the hero of the story, painted as a woman who fights the good fight against big people (“I don't like bullies,” she says). Redford's Rather, too, comes off as a golden god, a man who is larger than life both on and off screen, and is even given a final moment of great importance followed by a bit of information that straight-up decimates the grand goodbye.

“Truth” would merely by annoying had it focused solely on the purportedly tragic fall of what the film considers a good journalist, but its overwhelming sense of self-righteousness makes it flipping unbearable. The film shows Blanchett and her team – Grace's character in particular – as fighters raging against the political machine on behalf of the American people, part of a dying breed of journalists doing so. (Another quote from Blanchett: “There aren't a lot of people who do what we do anymore.”) The sheer audacity and solipsism in that concept is staggering, and the fact the film never analyzes or even calls out the CBS reporters for that is amazingly cowardly. For a film that purports to support great journalism, it falls at capturing even the most basic tenets of the practice.

Review: One and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 121 minutes

Genre: Biographical

Ask Away

Target audience: The friends and family of Mary Mapes.

Take the whole family?: There is a bit of mild cursing, but nothing to really justify a proper “R” rating. Still, it will get quiet tedious for kids and for many adults.

Theater or Netflix?: Might as well stay home if you want to watch it.

What is the truth about the Killian Documents?: They’re more than likely faked, although the film never embraces the idea that there is some ambiguity to the legitimacy of the letters by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. “Truth” defends the legitimacy of the documents in full force  but the fact those documents are copies and the originals cannot be produced makes them squiffy at best. At worst, the CBS reporters got duped very, very easily.

Watch this instead?: “Shattered Glass” is a much, much more interesting film about a journalist's fall from grace. Unlike “Truth,” the film is a bit more even handed and explores the grander consequences for the falsehoods spread by its central figure, Stephen Glass. Also check out “Good Night, and Good Luck,” an excellent retelling of Edward R. Murrow's investigation of infamous Sen. Joseph McCarthy.