REVIEW: Spotlight (2016)

Any film about investigative journalists will always have to survive a comparison with All The President’s Men – not least Spotlight, which features Ben Bradlee Jr, as played by John Slattery. Where other films revel in a clash between heroes and villains, Spotlight is a lot more subtle and a lot more engrossing.

Spotlight follows a group of investigative journalists for the Boston Globe as they uncover a huge scandal within the Boston establishment, which ends up uncovering a history of abuse inside the Roman Catholic Church on a global scale. The focus of the film is less on the crimes themselves, but more the efforts to uncover them. The team breaks into different tasks, each developing an element of this tightly constructed film’s chief target. Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton) battles an establishment who would prefer that the story go away, while Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) chases the evidence and a seemingly doomed victim’s lawsuit headed by embattled and disgruntled lawyer Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci). Meanwhile, Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) tracks down and interviews some victims.

After one film in which the filmmakers toned down their own material and another in which a filmmaker openly did not trust his own material, it is a relief to see a film of such confidence and skill.  Spotlight is as much a procedural as anything else, a slow burner that is nonetheless engrossing, not unlike, apologies, All The President’s Men. Every stumbling block and sudden revelation that comes Rezendes’ way is dramatic and interesting and Ruffalo runs around gamely. But the film is most disturbing when it tackles the ways in which the conspiracy of silence is maintained – decent men who suggest that there is nothing in the story, keeping the voices low so their wives don’t hear. There is even a mystery in the film as it is revealed that someone on the paper suppressed evidence of the abuse years ago. This, however, is not played up as a twist, but more as a disturbing and subtle portrayal of how easily the Church was able to get away with it for so long.

The film is not about the victims, though scenes of Pfeiffer interviewing some victims are presented with tact and respect. It is a film about investigative journalism and the ease with which the status quo can be maintained in the face of systematic abuse. The film dabbles with the tropes of the conspiracy thriller. Richard Jenkins plays Richard Snipe, an ex-priest and psychotherapist who states, chillingly, that the abuse is endemic within the priesthood, who is never seen and only heard through a telephone – being this film’s Deep Throat (another comparison). We frequently see shots of the homes of the victims with a massive church steeple towering imposingly over them – hardly subtle, but undeniably effective. One scene, in which a retired priest gladly admits his crimes to Pfeiffer, is as close as the film gets to thrilling, and it is nail-biting. Equally, the power of the Church, the resources they have to fight back, the good old men who are on their side, the silence and disinterest of the parties that should have revealed everything and the sheer scale of the abuse (shown starkly at the close of the film in a long list) give the film a sense of eeriness and danger.

Tom McCarthy, who played a journalist a lot less troubled by integrity in The Wire, films tightly and confidently. Spotlight is a rare film that relies on its material without fear or the misguided belief that the audience will understand the film better with an over the top score, a recognisable villain, a false dramatic arc. Indeed, the film doesn’t really have a villain and there is little in the film that is directly threatening, but that is what the best investigative journalism is – a chase, requiring patience and integrity, but in the end revealing something about all of us. Indeed, anger is ultimately not the film’s response, more a stunned sadness. What is ultimately so sobering about Spotlight in its representation of how the Church’s crimes were revealed, is how it took so long for the cover-up to break. Spotlight is as much a tribute to good journalism as it a warning about the secrecy and silence that surrounds any powerful social organisation.

REVIEW: The Kids Are All Right (2010)

The Kids Are All Right is the latest of the current batch of American artificial insemination comedies, following closely on from The Switch and The Back-Up Plan. This new one, however, has got much more critical attention since its premiere at last year’s Sundance Film Festival. This is probably due to its arthouse and independent credentials as it remains questionable whether it’s marking out has anything to do with its quality.

Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are a couple with two loving children, Joni and Laser (Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson) and a nice, suburban house. Their family may seem unconventional, but it functions just like any other family. The balance is upset with the arrival of the kids’ sperm donor father Paul (Mark Ruffalo) after Joni and Laser contact him behind their parents' back. Things get more complicated, the trials of marriage offsetting the cosy domesticity of Nic and Jules’ lives.

The performances are all uniformly believable with the camera remaining trained on its actors, observing their uncomfortable glances and nervous twitches. A lot of the focus of the film is based on achieving an authenticity. The characters are seen as real, with lives that expand above and beyond the tight narrative frame, that of the threatened and reasserted family values. Characters fall out with friends or talk at length about music or local food without progressing the story one notch. Lisa Cholodenko (who also directs) and Stuart Blumberg write clever dialogue that doesn’t feel forced and present characters that seem to drive the story independently of whatever plot machinations Cholodenko or Blumberg may throw in their path. It is clear that The Kids Are All Right is a film with a lot of talent behind it.

So why does it not work? The characters work and the things they say fit who they are. The film itself remains oddly cold and uninteresting. It leaves many of its best scenes too early, taking on the veneer of an edited highlights compilation of embarrassing moments. It takes a lot of effort to convince you that its character might exist but doesn’t really allow you to spend time with them. We end up watching them through a microscope, observing from a distance rather than being there with them. This distance may or may not have something to do with the politics of the filmmakers. They seem much more interested in making ‘important’ points as if they are arguing with us, trying to convince us that, yes, the kids are all right. It may be a gross simplification, but I can’t help but think that the film is preaching to the converted as, after all, its audience are people who actively chose to go and see an LGBT-themed film.

Matters are not helped by the film’s decline into melodrama in its final third. Here, the characters become the vehicles to drive the tired plot forward. Their actions and conversations seem less organic. While the typical acoustic guitar strings twang, the American indie movie’s method of telling us that we should be feeling sad, things get rather boring. You get the film’s message early on, but it is not above reminding you about it or making damn sure you didn’t miss it the first time round. It is a film with a progressive message (families are families no matter what shape or form) but with an overtly didactic execution. If, in the end, it seems worth getting worked up about, it is a rather frustrating film for exactly what it gets right.

Politics and cinema are uneasy bedfellows. When it works, it really works but when it doesn’t it makes for some patronising films. The Kids Are All Right doesn’t want to charm or entertain, it wants to change opinions and spark debate. But rather than intrigued hums and ahs, it will more likely be met with duh’s and yawns. A film that thinks it is more controversial than it really is.