Film Review: SPOTLIGHT

For reasons I don't understand, many movies finally get to Maine long after they have opened in theaters elsewhere. This means that by the time we see them, if ever, we've read all the reviews and heard all the hype, making it hard to go in with an open mind. Spotlight is one of those. Already there is talk of Oscars for the cast, although I'm not sure for who or why; in this film, the story is the true star.

The Spotlight team in a huddle.

It's almost too hard to believe, but it's true and we've all heard it already: Alarming numbers of Catholic priests sexually abuse little children, boys and girls alike. Turns out that fifty percent of all priests are not celibate, and many of them are pederasts. The Church covers for them, reassigning them to other parishes once their dastardly deeds are discovered in their own backyard. The problem is global, as wide-reaching as the Catholic Church itself, although here the focus is on Boston as a team of tireless reporters from The Boston Globe hunt down the gory details, beginning back in 2001.

An able cast of proven actors, most notably Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Stanley Tucci and Rachel McAdams, tell the story. And tell it and tell it; the film is pretty much all close-ups of talking heads with little else. A few shots of downtown Boston flash by, making you hungry for more, but mostly you can see Spotlight with your eyes closed and not miss anything. For a visual person such as myself, it's disappointing. Still, if you're hungry for all the dirt on just how depraved the Catholic Church was, and possibly still is, this movie more than satisfies.