Some movies stay with you long after they have ended. And a few do it with such panache. Spotlight picks up a delicate story, and lays out the events that happened with finesse, leaving you wondering where you were when the grave misdoings happened. The movie is based on the true story of how The Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese. We have all read about this story, we have all seen Priests made fun of in comedy shows and jokes written about the molestation of little boys, this movie makes you feel the pain a child must have gone through when the violation occurred, and so much more.

 

“What do you do when the God asks you to do something?”, implores one of the church victims at one point. And that is when you try to comprehend the gravity of the whole situation. These were God’s men we are talking about here; these are spiritual leaders. The children they broke either went into depression, alcoholism, drugs or took their own lives. And the movie does not try to sugarcoat it, and it does not try to amplify the whole situation- it presents the way it is and leaves it to the audience to comprehend.

 

The people in the movie are brilliant, and you could expect nothing less of the cast of Micheal Keaton- who has carried on his amazing work after Birdman, Mark Ruffalo- thick accent, wonderful as ever, the beautiful Rachel McAdams, Liev ‘Sabertooth’ Schrieber and John ‘Madmen’ Slattery. I knew nothing about the movie before I started watching it- started it partly because of the cast, and was blown away. It tells us the importance of investigative journalism- something that is a dying breed nowadays, and the impact that it can have on the whole world. The movie does not turn the journalists into heroes, it presents them as who they are, lets them do their job, with a realism that grips the audience. It tenderly lays down tiny insights into the lives of the journalists, as well as the people who had been violated- twice- one by the priests and second by the system that did nothing to punish who wronged them.

 

Do watch! 10/10.