At the beginning of Spotlight, we are told that the movie is based on true events. We might have suspected as much anyway since everyone in the movie seems to be white.  Fictional movies so lacking in ethnic diversity are now discouraged.  There are homosexuals in this movie, which would normally be a plus in favor of diversity, but they mostly turn out to be priests that molested young boys.  The whole point of diversity is to portray in a positive light those who belong to a group that has historically been discriminated against, so featuring homosexuality in this negative way in a work of fiction would defeat the whole purpose.  Given the requirements of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences now in place, one wonders if this movie could have received the award for Best Picture were it made today.  The Academy also encourages representation of people with disabilities, but the closest this movie comes to that is when one of the child-molesting priests seems to be mentally impaired.  For example, he thinks it’s all right that he fooled around with boys because he never got any “gratification” out of it.  On the other hand, maybe the Academy would have made an exception for all this on account of its being a true story. Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is sometimes politically incorrect as well.

Speaking of which, there are some movies that would be unbelievable if presented as fiction, but are accepted by the audience if informed at the beginning that the story is true.  In the case of Spotlight, however, the statement at the beginning that it is based on actual events has the additional function of making the movie morally permissible.  If it were not true that the Catholic Church was guilty of covering up hundreds of thousands of incidents of child molestation on the part of priests for decades, making a fictional movie depicting such events would have been unthinkable.

The movie sums things up nicely in the first few minutes.  The year is 1976. The place is a police station in Boston.  At the front desk, a young cop is learning how things work from an older cop.  It seems that Father Geoghan has been caught molesting a couple of boys.  The older cop says, “The mother’s bawling and the uncle’s pissed off.”  The mother is divorced with four kids, so Father Geoghan was “helping out,” the older cop says sarcastically. Later in the movie, we learn that priests often prey on boys from families where there is an absentee father.

In another room, the bishop emphasizes the good work the Church does for the community, assuring the mother, who is there with her brother and her two children, that Father Geoghan will be taken out of the parish.  The screenplay says she is fingering some rosary beads, but it is not obvious when watching the movie. Toward the end of the movie, however, we see a similar scene with a mother and her two sexually abused children, only this time we can see the rosary she is holding.

The Assistant District Attorney arrives, encouraging the older cop to keep the press from finding out what is going on, but this cop already knows the drill. When the young cop says that it will be hard to keep the press away from the arraignment, the older cop says with derision, “What arraignment?”

This scene captures the essence of the situation.  The State is in cooperation with the Church to keep the press from finding out, and to that end, the priest will be able to remain a priest, and there will be no charges filed against him.

The mother is devoutly religious, so in addition to the horror of finding out that her two boys have been molested, she must cope with the fact that it was a priest who was guilty of doing it.  In general, the need people have for religion is so strong that it is thought better to let priests keep molesting children rather than have the truth come out and shake people’s faith in God.

Later in the movie, the year now being 2001, one of the reporters for the Boston Globe, Eileen McNamara, has written an opinion piece on how Father Geoghan has by this time molested eighty kids in six different parishes over the last thirty years, something Cardinal Law knows all about. When it is noted that the Church dismissed the claims, Eileen remarks, “He said, she said.” Actually, it is more a matter of “Adult says, child says.”  And the sense we get repeatedly in this movie is that if women often have a hard time being believed when men abuse them, with children it is even more so.  In fact, it is not so much a case of their not being believed as it is that children don’t seem to matter that much.

The discussion about Eileen’s opinion piece is brought up on the day that the Boston Globe is welcoming a new editor, Marty Baron, played by Liev Schreiber.  He is especially interested in this story, but no one else at the meeting seems to care much.  In fact, prior to Marty’s arrival, the attitude at this newspaper seems to be that it is just a dog-bites-man story.  Priest molests child? Not news.  Child molests priest?  Now, that would be news.

There is an investigative team at the Boston Globe called “Spotlight,” consisting of Robby (Michael Keaton), Mike (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha (Rachel McAdams), and Matt (Brian d’Arcy James).  They report to Ben Bradlee, Jr. (John Slattery).  They were all raised Catholic, but they have lapsed or have drifted away from the Church for one reason or another.

Marty wants Spotlight to follow up on this story about Geoghan.  Here is another instance of something that would not likely have been in the movie were it not based on actual events.  Marty is a Jew.  Having a Jew attack the Catholic Church for protecting pedophile priests would have been inflammatory had the story not been true. If this movie were fiction, my guess is that Marty would have been a Protestant played by an African American.

There are two other aspects about Marty that make him a suspicious character. In a discussion Robby has with Jim Sullivan, an attorney for the Church, Jim asks if Marty has a family, and Robby answers that he does not. Jim then asks if Marty is divorced.  Again, the answer is No. Notwithstanding the fact that the Catholic Church regards divorce as a sin, Jim would have felt better if Marty were at least divorced because a lot of people don’t trust bachelors.  Unless they are priests, of course.  Also, Marty doesn’t care about baseball.  Of all things!  Jim can’t believe this guy is the new editor of the Boston Globe.

An attorney that has been representing the victims of Father Geoghan, Mitchell Garabedian, says that it takes an outsider like a Jew to take on the Church.  That makes sense.  Still, were this movie fiction, someone like Morgan Freeman would have been outsider enough, as well as satisfying the need for diversity without risking a charge of antisemitism.

By the way, I said that everyone in this movie seemed to be white, but Garabedian says he is also an outsider since he is Armenian, which would make him Asian.  I guess in real life, he was.  But he is played by Stanley Tucci, who is of Italian descent.  That would never be allowed today.  Those that made this movie would have had to go out and find an actual Armenian to play this part.

Garabedian is exceptional among lawyers, most of whom deal directly with the Church for some easy money, taking a third of the maximum settlement allowed by law for a suit against a charitable organization, $20,000 to be exact. Instead, Garabedian insists on taking these cases to court.  As a result, he has been threatened with disbarment three times.  Noting how widespread the corruption is regarding these cases, he says to Mike, “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.”

In the end, the Boston Globe finally publishes a series of stories revealing the many priests in Boston that have molested children and the coverup going all the way up to Cardinal Law.  But this turns out to be just the beginning, for the epilogue lists places all over the United States and the rest of the world where the Church has also sinned by protecting priests rather than children.

Hopefully, this will be the last time we have to deal with a major conspiracy to protect pedophiles.