It's a great movie. Very moving. My only problem is with characters. I understand the choice of keeping the subject on the front. But sometimes, it's like if the characters are just there to demonstate the stuff. Few scenes to understand who they are and how it's affecting them. But the character's arc is not always effective.

I liked the movie a lot. It's a powerful story and it makes the process of investigative journalism quite gripping. Similar to Bruno's comment, I was a little surprised by the film's lesser emphasis on character arcs. I wasn't bothered by it since in the world of the film, both the story and the team were so much important than the individual. I can see why it might not work for others, though. Will look forward to discussing more on character day. An interested feature is this podcast that explores Spotlight and All the President's Men together. Links: http://thenextpictureshow.tumblr.com/post/132960581395/presenting-the-first-episode-of-the-next-picture and http://thenextpictureshow.tumblr.com/post/133079459995/part-two-of-our-discussion-of-all-the-presidents. I hadn't actually seen All the President's Men before, so I checked it out as a result. Excellent film. There are many parallels. A neat one was the Bradlee family ties: Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards) was the editor at the Washington Post during All the President's Men and son Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery) was at the Boston Globe during Spotlight.

Bruno, I hear you. This issue -- the lack of insight or depth of the reporters -- seems to be the single biggest critique of the movie. I have some thoughts on this which I'll hit in a comment below. Your point about arc is especially relevant (see below).

Steve, first off, thanks for those links. I've heard a lot of comparisons of Spotlight to All the President's Men, mostly unfavorable. And yes, ATPM is a stellar movie. However - and I'm going from memory here - to critique Spotlight as having LESS character insight or arc than ATPM is, I think, unfair. In ATPM, there is an arc - of sorts - with the Bernstein and Woodward characters in that they go from two individuals working on the same story to - in effect - a team. This is highlighted when the Ben Bradlee character cries out, "WOODSTEIN!" However, how much more do we get to know about either character and their personal lives? Not a whole lot. Indeed, I would argue we actually learn MORE about the personal lives of the reporters in Spotlight than President's Men: * Mike's Catholicism and split with his wife. * Matt's concern about a predator priest located in his neighborhood. * Robby's complicity in not following up on the story years ago after he wrote an article for the newspaper. * We even get to see Sacha spend time with her family. Not a lot, I'll grant you, but I believe there is a very specific reason why McCarthy made this choice. My reflections on that in the next comment. BTW I've also seen Spotlight critiqued in comparison to The Verdict, primarily because of (A) the Catholic Church's complicity in a crime (in this case, one of omission, rather than commission) and (B) Frank's (Paul Newman) investigation as to the detail as what happened to the coma victim. I think this is a poor comparison as they are completely different narrative approaches. The Verdict is a story of redemption, Frank in effect 'saving' his life by speaking on behalf of the coma victim. Her character is little more than a McGuffin, a cipher onto which Frank projects his feelings of guilt and shame about how he's pissed away his life. Apart from Walter's backstory, there is none of that in Spotlight. Again, see my next comment as to why I think that's the case. Once more, thanks for those links!

I think Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer may well have written more about the each reporter and their private lives, but at some point, McCarthy made an editorial choice NOT to go there beyond the level they do in the movie. Why? I believe they decided on that direction precisely in order to KEEP THE FOCUS ON THE VICTIMS. They hit a delicate balance, one I think works really well, to humanize the reporters primarily through their actions in investigating the crimes, crimes against the story's VICTIMS. If they deviated into any of the reporters' private lives more than they did, they would tear apart that very thin membrane which in effect kept the emotional focus of the story on the victims. Let me put it this way: If they had delved into Mike's Catholicism, how hugely conflicted he is due to some previous experiences... Matt becoming more of a vigilante against the defrocked priest in his neighborhood... or Robby's guilt feelings about how he failed to pursue the case back then, we would have ended up with a Lifetime movie. No disrespect to Lifetime, just using that as a way of making a point that Spotlight could have VERY EASILY slipped into melodrama. Instead the emotional distance the camera - and by extension the audience - has from the lives of the reporters is completely in sync with their jobs as journalists, creating an objectivity both in terms of what they do as reporters and who they are as people which - again - makes every one of those scenes with the victims and THEIR emotional lives that much more powerful. Honestly, I think that editorial choice by McCarthy is an especially courageous one because this movie could have missed the mark, even FAILED so easily. And I guarantee you, some suit at some point was pressuring McCarthy, either directly or his sense of what they would want, to make more of the inner lives of the movie's stars, give each more of an arc. In fact, it's to the credit of the actors they understood and embraced the restraint the script gave to each of their characters. Apart from Mike's couple of impassioned moments and one particularly aroused monologue, the characters are low-key almost throughout the story. Bottom line, the subject matter - priests abusing children - is such inflammatory content, I doubt Spotlight could have been made any better than it is in allowing the dry facts of the case combined with the emotional impact on the handful of victims we get to know to speak for themselves. That said, I have several writing colleagues who have critiqued the movie because of its 'lack of character depth'. As to the question of characters not having an arc, I disagree and will speak to that when we discuss characters.

I saw this movie a couple of days ago and wholeheartedly agree with all the positive words about it. And while I do understand the critique about the supposed lack of character depth, I don't believe that it's valid (and this is just my personal opinion :) ). First of all, as this movie and its Oscar win so aptly demonstrates, there are no rules. A movie can work perfectly well without hitting all the spots that are believed to be needed such as strong characters and arcs. Sure, those are the bases and make for great stories but in this case, I believe that the protag is the group of journalists as a whole and the most important thing is the story of the criminal priests and the church's cover-up of all that they knew. It's horrifying and it takes more than an individual to get to the bottom of it. Also, the characters are brilliantly revealed through the actions themselves, through conflict and journalistic discoveries. I haven't read the script yet but I do applaud the writers' courage for doing something different - their take on this was very obviously thought all the way through. Looking forward to the rest of this week's discussion :)

Hi Scott, ESL (and sleep-deprived) writer here, please bear with me :) I agree with you on the 'focus on the victims' approach that McCarthy and Singer chose. I appreciated the fact that all the characters stayed low-key because it felt appropriate. To me the Spotlight team is really the protagonist. Symbolically, they're one person. Robby is the central character because he's the one who holds the character arc, and his teammates each represent a different part of the moral conflict. Mike is his mirror character who embodies passion for his work, Matt is the family man who is concerned about the children, Sacha empathizes with everyone: first her religious loved ones she might hurt, then the actual victims (and it's interesting that she's the one who almost got to talk to one of the guilty priests, who seemed more disturbed than pure evil). Robby, as their manager, is the brain: he decides where to send them, when to keep them in check. We don't need to know more about the individual characters because they're one. I think that's particularly appropriate in a film that's about institutions. It's not about punishing bad guys, but about highlighting a system, and wondering what part we involuntarily played in it. It's not about an evil Church, but about the power they let it have. That's maybe one of the main differences between ATPM and Spotlight. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Woodward and Bernstein were far more depicted as heroes of journalism than the Spotlight team, whose final victory is tainted by the bitter realization that they could have acted a lot sooner. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I found the difference between the posters pretty telling: All the President's Men : http://gointothestory.blcklst.com/2014/09/classic-70s-movie-all-the-presidents-men.html Spotlight, where they look inward: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/08/21/01/2B89064B00000578-0-image-a-25_1440115471750.jpg

Tom McCarthy has spoken about this a bit in interviews. I believe he says that the decision to make it an ensemble piece rather than to combine/enfold characters and focus on one or two "heroes" was made very early on. Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer went up to the Boston Globe, saw how the journalists worked, and made the decision to keep the focus on the ensemble or Spotlight team. Once they made that ensemble decision, they were limited in just how much a personal arc they could do with each character individually. There just wasn't a lot of "space" left for the individual stories once the focus was on the ensemble and the investigative work. And it's a brilliant use of an ensemble of top notch actors, hence the SAG award. I'm sure the ensemble approach also had a special appeal to TM, who is an actor himself. All that said, I thought Mike had an incredibly powerful arc. Mike has, as Tom McCarthy has said, his own crisis of faith. Once Mike gets the documents from Garabedian, there is no question of the Church's innocence or guilt. And this is the point at which Mike loses his religious "faith." It's a real moment of crisis, especially for a guy raised Catholic in one of the most Catholic of cities (maybe hard for LAers to relate to how embedded this is is Boston?) The net result is that Mike doubles down on his secular "faith" in the journalistic investigative process on which he has embarked. And his drive to get to the truth kicks into an even higher gear. (BTW, from the journalists I know, this driving and all-consuming "faith" in their investigative cause when on an important story rings absolutely true. You see it in ATPM as well. That is what great journalists do.) This whole turning point for Mike was brilliantly done. Further, it's not just an individual's turn. To a large extent, it's an entire generation's turn as well. The priests' abuse was horrific. This is and should be a story about the victims' permanent scars. The film also shows how the church's cover-up has furthered the very erosion of the institution they were trying to protect. Mike in that sense stands in for many who lost their faith in the wake of the abuse scandal... Another irony of course is that the real life events of 9/11 interrupt the powerful momentum that have been built up in the investigation. And I'm sure there was a ton of back and forth over how exactly to deal with that. One more sign of the script's effectiveness is that this real life problem doesn't crash all the momentum the story has built up--for Mike's character or for the investigation overall. For anyone trying to adapt a real-life story into a film, this script sets an incredibly high bar. As you can probably tell, I'm a huge fan of the script--and the film.

Hi Scott, thanks for all your comments. I completely agree with you and the other posts here that there is character development in Spotlight. I just found it interesting that it was less prominent than we are used to. I do agree it was a conscious and effective choice by Tom McCarthy, and that the subtlety and nuance of it rather than obvious drama was made for a satisfying film. Definitely helps emphasize the victims too, as well as the spirit of journalism.

screenstudent, you rightly point out Mike's character arc where he calls into question whatever remains of his faith in the Church. And I like the connection you make, how Mike shifts his faith to journalism. "The truth shall set you free," it says in the New Testament, and he claims that with passion. Good analysis!