Spotlighting The Hidden

Sexual assault and molestation of children has always been a subject that everyone knows about but not often talked about. The sex offenders or child predators have existed and settled in various places from poor and unsecure neighborhoods to rich and classy areas and they’ve held various degrees of positions from office worker and teacher to being powerful and prominent celebrities in Hollywood, political leadership and high ranking priests or other religious rankers. The subject is of the darkest, appalling and most damaging part of our societal problems, so much that high ranking institutions will go over their boundaries to risk to protect their image by censoring or defending the criminal rather than accepting and tackling the problem head on. The subject is also so unpleasant that victimized and non-victimized families don’t know how to encounter them or are too afraid and shamed to admit of the problems. The movie industry also suffers from this subject, as there aren’t many societal producers or directors courageous enough to showcase these problems in movie form, as it is a very touchy and unpopular subject. Spotlight is of the few movies that paint the riveting story of Boston Globe’s investigation team going after the widely alleged sexual abuses of Catholic priests in the city alone. The plot and the story highlights how the accusations against the Catholic Church and priests were kept off the record and hidden by a system with the sole goal of preserving the image of the institution. The complex system allowed for sexual predators to take advantage of their status to have easy targets in poor neighborhoods. Since the poor families wouldn’t have the voice, the will and the money to defend themselves, and the Church officials were too afraid to accept the problem, the molesters would often get away harmlessly. From the press’s side, the accusations were often swept under the rug because they were afraid to encounter the all mighty Church, and they were always constant stories that were much less risky. Thanks to Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigation team and the new editor, they finally went after the complex system by contacting every individual victim and discovering every hidden file that were kept sealed from the public. The movie does a phenomenal job at portraying the obstacles that the investigation team had to overcome to finally bring the issue to the spotlight. Every part of the movie, from the cast, the narrative, to the production has done an excellent work. The actors were extremely believable, emotional and well directed to a level that could compete with Academy Award winning movies. The narrative and the plot was well paced, and even though the movie is completely dialogue based and there is no action at all, just actors talking to each other for the whole movie, the film never felt boring or tiring and the writing kept me hook all throughout. The production was also taken seriously, with professional camera work and polished directing. Compared to Shattered Glass, this was an overall much more enjoyable movie to watch given the said category. This movie is a must watch.

Ahmad Mir Mohammad Sadeghi