2015--Spotlight, Tom McCarthy

 

2015—Spotlight, Tom McCarthy

Nominated: The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Room

Should have won: The Revenant

Be sure to see: Ex Machina, Green Inferno, The Hateful 8, It Follows, Paddington, Straight Outta Compton, The Visit

“We got two stories here. A story about degenerate clergy and a story about a bunch of lawyers turning child abuse into a cottage industry. Which story do you want us to write? Because we're writing one of them.”--Walter Robinson

   The Academy has been known to award movies with important social themes over better made, more deserving ones. Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction, A Beautiful Mind over Lord of the Rings, and In the Heat of the Night over Bonnie and Clyde all come to mind. The latest example falls in not because it isn't a worthy choice but because it is the first winner since I started paying attention to the Oscars that I'd never even heard of.

    I enjoyed Spotlight and felt its message of child abuse is important. It is particularly important this movie's message is heard for the past victims and the (hopefully few) future ones. But throughout the entire Oscars telecast (the worst in the ceremony's history, by the way, with Chris Rock proving himself to be the worst host the ceremony has ever seen, but that's another story), I was thinking how I was going to write up my thoughts on The Revenant. When Spotlight was announced as the winner I thought “What the hell is that? Did they just make up a title?” With Leonardo DiCaprio finally getting his much-deserved Oscar—one he should have gotten 22 years ago for What's Eating Gilbert Grape—and Mad Max: Fury Road snagging one award after another, Spotlight came out of nowhere to get the big prize.

    Spotlight is another “based on a true story” film but in this case it actually is. In 2001, a four-person investigative team working for the Boston Globe work tirelessly on a local child molestation story. Having a journalism degree myself I was scratching my head at how these people were earning their paycheck. The entire movie they were gathering data and doing interviews for a single story they were going to write at the movie's end. Was there nothing else going on? Was their section in the Globe blank every day? Apparently, 80 people in the Boston area claim to have been sexually abused by priests when they were younger. The movie seems to suggest they were all boys. Being raised Catholic, I remember there being alter girls as well as alter boys, and these cases don't seem to take place much earlier than when I was up there in the late '80s/early '90s. Some of the victims talk freely to reporters, others are more reluctant to talk. A surprising interviewee was a priest who appeared eager to talk, hiding nothing, throwing himself under the bus. His reasoning to why he doesn’t feel he was wrong for his actions left me confused on whether or not I should feel sorry for him.

    I liked a good deal of the movie and, if it really is a true story, it is an important story to tell, but I had some issues with it, some minor some not. The story takes place in late 2001 so, naturally, they have to show the inevitable Trade Center attack footage. I noticed they called it “nine eleven” and a refrigerator magnet said “9/11 never forget”. I don't remember bumper stickers and the like calling the event “9/11” so quickly after the event. But mostly it got me thinking what were the major news stories in the summer of 2001? What important stories were bumped off the headlines?

    The movie has its moments. My favorite shot is when one of the Spotlight team is in a cab and passes one of the victims who was interviewed earlier. Here he is pushing a child on a swing. He is coping with the past, life goes on. But did talking to the Spotlight team help or hurt his conscience? That particular character, I'm not sure of, but the ending of the film left a silver lining. The hard work Spotlight did for this story provides a bitter-sweet but appropriate conclusion to the film. Then it provides us with worldwide statistics for a depressing coda.

    The movie is good but I'd like to point out two things: 1. It is rated R but “frickin'” is said a lot. Odd for a movie that doesn't hold back on the molestation aspect. If you are going to be rated R and cover child rape, I don't see how censoring some four-letter words is necessary. And 2. I am not doubting the story is true and I'm not doubting priests still molest boys, but I was raised Catholic and I can tell you no priest ever seemed inappropriate to me. Maybe the media would rather people see the Catholics as perverts but can we also be reminded how the Catholic church is the #1 organization in the world for giving to the poor? You've heard the term a few bad apples ruin the bunch? Spotlight does a hell of a job picking them out.