A rivetting story simply told - *****

The writer and director of this movie Tom McCarthy along with co-writer Josh Singer completed the award winning screenplay in 2013.  He said that one of his goals for his film is to highlight the power of journalism which according to him was 'waning'.  The movie premiered to a 'sustained applause' by the audience of the 72nd Venice Film Festival in 2015 as a non-competitive entry. And in 2016 the movie won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Spotlight is a spot at the Boston Globe handled by a group of investigative reporters.  The story is about how the team came about exposing the systemic sexual abuse of Catholic priests in the Boston area, starting with the directive of incoming editor Marty Baron urging the team to pursue the story and ending with the exposure of more sexual abuses by the clergy.  The series of articles won for The Boston Globe the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003.

This film was superbly made in a way that everything was under control.  Even  the Catholic Church agrees how factual the story was presented regarding the Boston scandal.  Not over dramatizing it, not even exploiting the ploy of the victims, not demonizing the priests nor lionizing the journalists here that to me are the heroes, this movie really told the story as it is.  And it stars an ensemble cast of good actors nobody is dispensable.  I particularly noticed the kind of work that actor Mark Ruffalo puts in his role as Michael Rezendes.  His portrayal is deep into the bone, getting into the essence of his character ultimately changing his outward appearance from within.  I actually almost did not recognize him.. and I'm not talking about prosthetics. 

I feel very lucky having able to catch this film on a special screening.  I really rarely give a 5 star rating to any film because there wil always be something wrong.  But to me this film is what movie making should be all about.