The Boston Globe Team That Broke the Catholic Abuse Scandal, and the Bureaucratic Grind Behind It

The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team did not set out to take down a cardinal. It set out to chase one priest.

That is the engine of Spotlight, Tom McCarthy’s 2015 drama about the paper’s investigation into child sex abuse by priests of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and the cover-up that shielded them. The film runs 129 minutes and carries a tagline that reads like a dare: “Break the story. Break the silence.” It earns it.

Trailer, via Open Road Films.

Marty Baron Arrives

Marty Baron, played by Liev Schreiber, is the new editor at the Globe. He wants the paper to matter to its city. After reading a Globe article about attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who charged that Cardinal Bernard Law knew about Father John Geoghan’s abuse and did nothing, Baron pushes the Spotlight team to dig.

Michael Rezendes, played by Mark Ruffalo, goes to Garabedian. The lawyer first declines to talk. Rezendes tells him, against instructions, that he is on Spotlight, and Garabedian cooperates.

The team thinks it has one priest reassigned from parish to parish. Then they see the pattern: many priests in Massachusetts shuttled the same way. Phil Saviano, who heads the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, advises them. They widen the search to thirteen priests. Psychotherapist Richard Sipe, who once treated abusive priests referred by the Church, puts the number near 90 in Boston — about 6% of priests. The team builds a list of 87 names.

What the Cast Carries

The ensemble does the work. Michael Keaton plays Walter “Robby” Robinson, Spotlight’s head. Rachel McAdams is Sacha Pfeiffer. Brian d’Arcy James is Matt Carroll, Gene Amoroso is Stephen Kurkjian, and Jamey Sheridan is Jim Sullivan. Stanley Tucci is Garabedian and John Slattery is Ben Bradlee Jr.

The plot is original, but it rests on the Spotlight team’s stories, which won the Globe the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. The film was shown Out of Competition at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, at the Telluride Film Festival, and in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

What matters here is not the awards table. It is the 1976 opening — two policemen, a cleric, a mother who declines to press charges, and Geoghan quietly released. That scene is the whole argument. The cover-up was not one decision. It was a habit, repeated until it looked like order.

The film’s real weight is in how it treats reporting as labor: phone calls, lists, doors, documents. It never makes the journalists heroes. It makes them workers.

Best Picture · Boston Globe investigation · Catholic Church abuse · movie review · Spotlight film · Tom McCarthy