Spotlight (2015)

Spotlight, as of now, is the best movie I've seen from 2015. It tells the story of the Boston Globes famed 'Spotlight' team and its investigative look into wide spread child sexual abuse by priests in the Boston area and the efforts of the Catholic Church to cover it up. This is straight forward good film making, there are no big flourishes in the cinematography, the acting is grounded and realistic, the subject matter is grim, but it's just damned compelling. Set primary in the year 2001 its interesting how quaintly old fashioned the world of only 15 years ago already looks on screen. Though things have only gotten worse for the newspaper industry since that time this film reminds us of the important role papers can play as venue for long form journalism, in many ways this films closet cousin is probably All The Presidents Men. The films excellent ensemble cast includes Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and the wonderfully understated Micheal Keaton. The Globes stories eventually resulted in the downfall of abuse enabling Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, at least within the American Church, though John Paul II gave him a regrettable soft-landing with a position in the Vatican.The Globe is also generally credited with removing what was left of the guise of plausible deniability that the Catholic Church had been using as shield against really dealing with the problem of sex abuse by priests, and though the extent to which they have successfully dealt with it subsequently can be argued, at least there is no more denying its a problem. ****