I appear to have a knack for Academy Award winners with these articles, having already analysed Birdman, A Beautiful Mind and Unforgiven. What can I say? They win Best Picture for a reason.
That said, Spotlight is admittedly a little less packed with things that can be unfurled and unfolded, and so this will be a rather short article. I chose to analyse Spotlight because there are things for which the film is worth praising.
Having watched it a second time this past week, it is rather remarkable that a film of its nature has such great replay value, something you would usually associate with, say, a Captain America: Civil War or a Borat. Spotlight, set in 2001, centres around the Boston Globe team of journalists – named Spotlight – who uncovered the horrific scandals of child molestation (to put it lightly) that ran (or runs) prevalent in the Catholic Church, in Boston and around the world. This is incredibly uncomfortable, and what makes it a (pleasant?) surprise is that you can watch Spotlight a second time and love it more.
Spotlight is able to be brilliant simply because it resists the urge to be ‘Hollywood-ised’. There are very few films that come to mind, except perhaps documentaries, that are as real as Spotlight. Every performance is subtle and reserved, and there is only one moment of an outburst, which comes from Mark Ruffalo. Other than that, everyone is as real a human being as possible, and this deserves true praise. It’s one thing to act as a character. It’s a whole other thing to act as a person.
Spotlight is able to be brilliant despite this. It is so gripping and entertaining, and this is largely because it knows its subject matter does not need any further elements to be intriguing. There is no ‘inside man’ in the Church or anything of the sort, because the film doesn’t need it. It already has enough to disturb people more than any horror film can, and Tom McCarthy’s masterful fast-paced and constantly moving directing, combined with an excellent yet soft score, makes Spotlight an inviting experience.
I honestly cannot praise this realism more. Whenever a film says ‘based on a true story’, you can immediately tell that not everything is exactly based on true events, because there’s always something there to make it seem more suspenseful or interesting. Spotlight, however, never makes you think this, and yet is so engrossing because of the way it’s filmed and cut together.
It’s a shining example of how film doesn’t need to be extravagant to be special. Editing, writing and directing matter to making a film appealing, and real acting is far superior to anything even slightly over the top any day.
The fact is that Spotlight, a subtle drama which is almost a documentary in its storytelling, leaves a greater impact on you than anything that is trying too hard to have the same effect. That is why Spotlight is so special.
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