TMD's Creatively Named Blog

Having just watched it, I have a hard time agreeing with some of this.

 

It doesn’t say anything more about it, nothing about personal impact.

 

 

After the interview with one of the victims, Garabedian says "he's one of the lucky ones. He's still alive." I think the implications of the statement are obvious without getting specific. It lets the viewer know that there absolutely are long term impacts of the abuse on the survivors, and provides further reason for the viewer to root for Spotlight to get their story out.

 

As for the Spotlight team itself: It's personal for Matt Caroll who is disturbed that he and his family live almost across the street from a treatment center. It becomes personal for Robinson when it's revealed that he's the one who buried crucial information in the first place, five years before the investigation even started. And even before that when he finds out that his high school teacher was an abuser, and he realizes he was just lucky he didn't end up a victim. It's personal for Sacha who likes to go to church with her Nana, and now can't. It's personal for Rezendes who was hoping to go back to church one day, the implication being that he just can't do that now. All four main members of the Spotlight team were impacted by the story they put together.

 

...but we aren’t really invested in them

 

 

Couldn't disagree more. For me, all my investment comes from the stories of the survivors. It's through them that we hear firsthand just how widespread and sickening these actions are, and it's through these stories that we come to root for Spotlight to nail the article.

 

As the movie is, there’s precious little conflict in the film. The Spotlight team never argue amongst themselves and there’s no debate at the newspaper if they should continue pouring all their time into this story.

 

 

Conflict came from multiple sources. In three instances, from the two lawyers who refused to divulge information, and from the rival newspaper (even if that was primarily in the heads of the Spotlight team). Other hurdles come from having to shift to a different topic after 9/11, and from Robinson making the decision to hold off on writing what would have been an effective story.

 

And although it wasn't direct conflict, there was definitely conflict from the church itself through their sealing of the incriminating documents, their removal of the public documents from the courthouse, and through their refusal to use language which obviously states the nature of why these priests were removed. Were they actively trying to hinder the investigation? Perhaps not*, but their efforts to sweep things under the rug in the first place is what provides the conflict.

 

(*Though Garabedian mentions upon his first meeting with Rezendes that the church has been trying to disbar him.)

 

Perhaps this just our differing philosophies, but I don't necessarily need a movie to have a hands on, tangible antagonist who directly meddles in the affairs of the protagonists. The red tape and bureaucratic obstacles were enough for me.

 

As for them not arguing amongst themselves, I would have been disappointed to see that in the movie. There's no need for any internal friction when there are enough obstacles they have to overcome. And including a scene on whether to even keep investigating would have been a huge detriment. I don't think there's any question that it's an important story to publish, and it would have been disappointing to see one of the Spotlight members prefer to sweep it under the rug. What was far more effective was the scene with Rezendes being frustrated with Robinson for choosing to withhold what would have been an effective story. Both of them know the story needed to be written, but there's a fundamental disagreement on how it should be written.

 

Conversely, Spotlight has no stakes

 

 

It's stated maybe twice that, if the story is butchered, or if they don't come at it from the right angle it will get buried and no real change will be made. Those are the stakes. Which makes the end of the movie all the more depressing.

 

And in the beginning, when Marty Baron mentions his plans to sue the church, it's a gamble. The judge in the court is Catholic, over half their readership is Catholic. Print newspapers are on their way out already. If they aren't careful they alienate a huge number of readers. These are not the main stakes, no, but as a viewer it put a little more emphasis on how serious this story is. That they are willing to gamble on the paper to tell it.

 

but instead have them getting it published be a plain, obvious, victory.

 

 

I found it to be hardly a plain, obvious victory. They didn't get the protests they were expecting, no, and the article was published, but the ending is not a victory. Instead we see their phones ringing off the hooks with more and more people coming forward with their stories. Their article is barely the tip of the iceberg. And the problem still isn't fixed, as you point out in your last paragraph. There is no victory here. They did everything as best they could, but there's still no real change.

 

And (while this is my own interpretation) the lack of protests has its own implications. I think we can take Sacha's Nana to be a representation of the general church going public in Boston. She was clearly devastated when she read the article. She, and presumably many other church goers, aren't angry at the Globe. They are horrified with what has been going on right in front of them.

 

I haven't seen The Big Short, so I don't know what sort of downer ending you're comparing it to, but I can not see the ending of Spotlight as anything other than downbeat.

 

Nor do I think the movie is safe, or obvious, and I think this is clear particularly with the two lawyers, Macleish and Sullivan. As a viewer it's easy for us to look at them and think they are bad people for defending the abusers, but are they really? Everyone in America has the right to a defense and a fair trial, and when Sullivan says he was just doing his job... yeah, he was. He had the unfortunate job of defending horrible people, but it was his job, and he's bound by the nature of that job to keep confidential the information Robinson wanted. Does that make him a bad person? I don't think the answer is obvious at all.

 

I think that while there are obviously bad things (abuse), and good people trying to stop ignorance about it (Spotlight), the rest of the movie focuses on things that are pretty grey in nature. There's no one reason why the abuse wasn't more public. Sure you had the church trying to cover it up, but you also had lawyers who were just trying to do their jobs right. And you had newspaper staff like Robinson who swept information under the rug without investigating the validity of it. I think there was even a scene where someone (Bradley, maybe?) calls Saviano a name which implies he's not a credible source.

 

Are these people just doing their job? Are they doing the right thing by withholding information, or by being skeptical? The movie provides no obvious answers to these questions, because there are none.

 

But, again, perhaps this all comes down to the different ways in which we view movies. While I don't agree with your criticisms, on some level I can still understand why your reaction is what it was.

 

All that said, I went to bed thinking that this subject would be great for a television program. More time could have been devoted to those personal relationships amongst the Spotlight team, more time showing how victims were effected by the abuse and investigation, and more time devoted to following up on what happened after the article was published. I love the movie as is, but you're right in that there's still a lot more here that could be told.

*shrug*

 

You make a lot of really good points, and a lot of the scenes you mention were some of my favorite parts (Caroll with the fridge a big highlight), but I feel like the bits in between were where it was weaker? Because they felt so disjointed (we never got back to Caroll's discomfort or even really met his family, iirc), those scenes felt a bit like a paint-by-numbers "this is the get personal moment." It was powerful, but maybe it didn't feel earned?

 

Also, I think bunches of the conflict felt like they were just there; the 9/11 thing happened, delayed them, aaaaand didn't really effect the rest of the story. I dunno.

 

I really don't know. Maybe I wanted it to get deeper with it.