Spotlight is a 2015 American biographical drama film directed by Tom McCarthy and written by McCarthy and Josh Singer. The film follows The Boston Globe "Spotlight" team, the oldest continuously operating newspaper investigative journalist unit in the United States, and its investigation into a decades-long coverup of widespread and systemic child sex abuse by numerous priests of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. Although the plot was original, it is based on a series of stories by the Spotlight team that earned The Globe the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. The film features an ensemble cast including Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian d'Arcy James, Liev Schreiber, and Billy Crudup.
Spotlight was shown in the Out of Competition section of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival and the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. It was released on November 6, 2015, by Open Road Films and grossed $98 million worldwide. It received widespread critical praise, with critics lauding the performances of the cast, historical accuracy, and screenplay; it won numerous guilds' and critics' association awards, and was named one of the best films of 2015 by various publications. Spotlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with Best Original Screenplay, from six total nominations, making it the first Best Picture winner since The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) to win only one other Oscar. The film also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
Plot In 1976, at a Boston Police station, two policemen discuss the arrest of Fr. John Geoghan for child molestation. A high-ranking cleric talks to the mother of the victims, assuring her that Geoghan will be removed from the parish. An assistant district attorney visits the precinct and tells the policemen to keep the arrest secret from the press. The mother declines to press charges and Geoghan is quietly released.
In 2001, Marty Baron, the incoming editor of The Boston Globe, meets Walter "Robby" Robinson, the head of the newspaper's "Spotlight" investigative team. Baron seeks to make the paper essential to the community. After Baron reads a Globe article about a lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, charging that Cardinal Bernard Law of the Archbishop of Boston knew about Geoghan's sexual abuse of children and did nothing to stop it, Baron urges the Spotlight team to investigate. Journalist Michael Rezendes contacts Garabedian, who initially declines to be interviewed. Though he is told not to, Rezendes reveals that he is on the Spotlight team and persuades Garabedian to cooperate.
The Spotlight team initially believes that they are following the story of one priest who was repeatedly reassigned to different parishes, but deduces that many other priests in Massachusetts have been similarly shuttled from parish to parish, suggesting a broader cover-up. With advice from Phil Saviano, who heads the victims' rights group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the team widens their search to thirteen priests. Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist who used to treat sexually abusive priests referred to him by the Church, estimates that there are roughly 90 abusive priests in Boston (6% of priests). The team develops a list of 87 names and conducts interviews with many of their victims.
As the team realizes the sheer scale of the investigation, it begins to take a toll on their lives. Matt Carroll learns that near his home, the Archdiocese quietly maintains a facility that houses and psychologically treats abusive priests, but to avoid spoiling the story, he cannot tell his neighbors; Sacha Pfeiffer finds herself unable to attend church with her grandmother; Rezendes pushes to get the story out quickly to prevent rival newspapers from preemptively publishing under-researched work that the Archdiocese can explain away; and Robinson's network of affluent Catholic friends pressures him to compromise the investigation to protect the Church.
When the September 11 attacks occur, the team is forced to temporarily de-prioritize their investigation. Garabedian informs Rezendes that there are publicly available court documents tying the cover-up to Cardinal Law himself, including a letter from Bishop John Michael D'Arcy warning Law of Geoghan's abuse. At Baron's direction, Robinson urges the team to continue researching the case, emphasizing that Law can write off anecdotal priests as bad apples and that the Church's systematic cover-ups must be exposed. After a judge grants the Globes motion to unseal more legal filings supporting the existence of a cover-up, the Spotlight team finally begins to write the story, which is scheduled for January 2002.
Before the story runs, Robinson confesses that in 1993, before he joined the Spotlight team, plaintiffs' attorney Eric MacLeish gave him a list of 20 sexually abusive priests, but he ran only a minor story and never followed up. He did not remember the list until Spotlight began investigating the Archdiocese. Baron acknowledges that reporters do not always get it right and commends Robinson and his team for exposing the crimes now. The story runs with a web link to the documents exposing Law's cover-up and a hotline for victims of abusive priests. The next morning, the team is inundated with calls from victims coming forward to tell their stories.
A textual epilogue notes that Law resigned in December 2002 and was eventually promoted to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, and presents a list of 105 U.S. communities and 101 others around the world where major scandals involving abuse by priests have taken place.
Cast Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes Michael Keaton as Walter "Robby" Robinson Rachel McAdams as Sacha Pfeiffer Brian d'Arcy James as Matt Carroll Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron John Slattery as Ben Bradlee Jr. Stanley Tucci as Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney representing victims of sexual abuse Gene Amoroso as Stephen Kurkjian, Boston Globe general investigative reporter Jamey Sheridan as Jim Sullivan, an attorney representing the Church Billy Crudup as Eric MacLeish, an attorney representing victims of sexual abuse Maureen Keill as Eileen McNamara, Boston Globe columnist Richard Jenkins as Richard Sipe, psychotherapist (telephone voice, uncredited) Paul Guilfoyle as Peter Conley Len Cariou as Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston Neal Huff as Phil Saviano of SNAP Michael Countryman as Richard Gilman, publisher of the Boston Globe Michael Cyril Creighton as Joe Crowley Laurie Heineman as Judge Constance Sweeney David Fraser as Jon Albano Tim Progosh as Principal Bill Kemeza Jimmy LeBlanc as Patrick McSorley
The real Sacha Pfeiffer, Michael Rezendes, and Walter Robinson make cameos in the background of the Fenway Park scene, while the real Ben Bradlee Jr. appears among the group of reporters listening to his film counterpart give instructions on 9/11 coverage.
Production Writing The film was written by Tom McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer. When McCarthy was asked how he and his co-author tackled the research and writing process, he said:
As I said, I passed [turned down the film] the first time! That's probably some indication of how intimidating it was. But I think, as always, with any big assignment, once you get over that initial shock and awe of how much material there was to cover, you start digging into the material and become really fascinated by and engaged with it, and we did. And yeah, it was a lot of work, but it was exciting work. It was really interesting work, parsing through details of not just the investigation, but its findings, and trying to determine what was most helpful in telling our story. I think having two brains on it was somewhat helpful too, because we could talk through it a lot. So it wasn't just sitting alone in a room and jotting notes. We were dialoguing a lot about it. That particular collaboration did feel investigative and on some level, seemed to parallel some of the collaboration of the reporters in that investigation. So, I think there was something about our collaboration that made that initial process more palatable on some level.
Development McCarthy and Singer completed the script in June 2013. It was on the 2013 Black List of unproduced screenplays. Singer told Creative Screenwriting that one of his goals for the film was to highlight the power of journalism, which he feels has been waning. He explained, "This story isn't about exposing the Catholic Church. We were not on some mission to rattle people's faith. In fact, Tom came from a Catholic family. The motive was to tell the story accurately while showing the power of the newsroom—something that's largely disappeared today. This story is important. Journalism is important, and there is a deeper message in the story."
Casting Bryan Cranston was offered an unspecified role, but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with The Infiltrator (2016). He later expressed regret for turning it down.
Filming Principal photography began on September 24, 2014, in Boston, Massachusetts, and continued in October in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Filming took place at Fenway Park, the then-current Boston Globe offices in Dorchester, Boston, the Boston Public Library, and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The film's editor Tom McArdle said of the post-production process, "We edited for eight months. We just wanted to keep refining the film. We cut out five scenes plus some segments of other scenes. Often we would just cut out a line or two to make a scene a little tighter." The Boston Police station depicted in the opening scene was filmed in Toronto at the former Toronto Police Service 11 Division station at 209 Mavety Street, and the former Sears building on Islington Avenue in Toronto was converted into a replica of the interior of the old Boston Globe, where the bulk of the filming took place. The brief scene in which Rezendes watches a children's church choir perform "Silent Night" was filmed in St. Basil's Church (Toronto), a Roman Catholic church on the University of Toronto campus.
Historical accuracy The film depicts only the events leading up to the publication of the Spotlight team's first article, whereas the team continued publishing follow-up reports for nearly two years afterward. As a result, certain events are depicted as having happened earlier than they actually did, including the scene where former priest Ronald H. Paquin freely admits to molesting children and having been molested himself. Sacha Pfeiffer did write the numerous follow-up reports on Paquin, but the interview depicted in the film was a blend of two interviews conducted by her and Steve Kurkjian, both of which took place about a month after the events in the film. Kurkjian, played in the film by Gene Amoroso, was a founding member of the Spotlight team before becoming the Globes Washington bureau chief, but rejoined the team after the first story was published to assist with further reporting on the abuses. Pfeiffer and Kurkjian have said that the confession was a much more gradual process and Paquin did not just "blurt it out" the way he does in the film. A scene where Matt Carroll discovers one of the priest treatment centers is down the block from where he lives is based on an actual discovery he made during the investigation, with one minor detail changed: Carroll really lived down the street from John Geoghan, the priest whose case sparked the investigations. Similar to his film counterpart, Carroll immediately posted a photo of Geoghan on his fridge warning his children to stay away if they spotted him. This was changed as the filmmakers felt audiences would not find this believable.