The problem with most films that are based on a true story is that, nine times out of ten, they will overdramatise it to the point where it doesn't feel real anymore. The impact is lessened because you can tell you are watching a movie. With Spotlight, that is not the case. It plays like a documentary, a style that may not have worked for lesser projects. However, it works here, purely because of the disturbing nature of the subject matter and it's extremely strong script. Spotlight is an incredibly well-written movie. The pacing is slow and controlled, carefully and gradually building tension throughout, while the dialogue reads extremely naturally. Yet the scripts key strength is that it doesn't over-sensationalise it's characters. It depicts the journalists of the Spotlight team as what they are: journalists. Not once does it try to make them out to be heroes or all-conquering defenders of righteousness, but instead opts to present them as human-beings doing their jobs and they are all the more relatable for it. Their disgust is your disgust; their revulsion is your revulsion. From a writing standpoint, Spotlight is impeccable.
Spotlight's other strength lies in its amazing acting. Each member of the all-star cast (which includes Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Stanley Tucci and the extremely underrated Brian d'Arcy James) are incredibly well-suited in their roles. Like I said before, you don't feel that you are watching actors on a screen, but rather journalists going about their jobs as each performance is so very much restrained, so held back, so rooted in the grounds of reality that it becomes a seminar is nuanced acting. Spotlight truly is an ensemble piece and every member of the cast meshes together so well, however if I was forced to pick a standout it would be Mark Ruffalo. Ruffalo proves himself to be a versatile character actor here, changing his voice and mannerisms to suit this character and sticking with it from beginning to end without faltering. The most passionate and outspoken member of the Spotlight team, Ruffalo's Michael Rezendes could also be considered the metaphorical voice of the audience watching the movie in the cinema. There is a fantastic scene in the film's final act where Rezendes lets loose all of his frustrations regarding the investigation, and it is so believable because he is verbalising what each and every single one of us watching the movie are thinking and feeling in that moment. Mark Ruffalo is a great "every-man" type actor, and he demonstrates it to no end with his dedicated performance here. However, there is a reason that the cast as an ensemble won more awards than they did as individual actors, as they are better as a whole than they are as individual performances, and I mean that in the most positive sense.
To be frank, I don't have many problems with this film at all. For me personally, it's one of the best dramas I've seen in the past five years and had me glued to the screen from beginning to end. In saying this, I have heard some people say they found the subject matter to be too heavy and the way the film handles it to be too direct and blunt. However, what some people call direct and blunt, I call honest and true. Members of the Catholic Church itself have come out in support of this film for not pussyfooting around the issues that plagued its diocese in Boston at this time. To have watered-down this story would have been disrespectful to the victims depicted in it and also against the message of accountability and facing issues head-on instead of sweeping them under the rug that the film is trying to put across. Spotlight is not a fun movie, but it is a movie that will captivate you from beginning to end and have you leaving the theatre knowing that you have seen a truly honest and well put together film.
Overall, Spotlight left me stunned. It was cinema at its best: well acted, well written and a story that made you fill up with emotion and challenges your world views at the same time. It's a warning of what can happen when you let an organisation become greater than the law. It challenges us to look ourselves in the eye, and look to see if there are injustices that we have cast a blind eye over in our own lives. Yes, Spotlight isn't a cinematically beautiful film like The Revenant. Nor is a happy go lucky feel-good movie. But Spotlight is an immensely powerful and well acted story, and the type of thing I hope we see more of this type of film hitting the big-screens as we enter 2016..
Score: 9.0/10
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