Spotlight puts Academy in spotlight

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/11/2015 (3948 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Spotlight, the fact-based press procedural that follows the Boston Globe team investigating sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, is being touted as an Oscar contender.

Of course, this movie about intrepid, integrity-driven journalists is being touted as an Oscar contender by, um, other journalists. Whether the people who actually vote on the Academy Awards will also be transported by scenes of scruffy reporters riffling through documents and making really detailed notes is another issue.

I loved the movie. A lot of newspaper people loved it. The Boston Globe reviewer loved it. Here at the Free Press, we ran the Spotlight review with the subheader “Journalists Defeat Evil,” which has kind of a superhero vibe.

Spotlight isn’t just a film about journalism. It’s a good film about good journalism. In a media world whipsawed by technological change and economic uncertainty, there’s something irresistible about this morale-boosting, back-to-basics look at journalism’s highest duty.

Spotlight’s portrayal of tough, morally tenacious reporters is especially welcome in a year when “newspaper journalist” has displaced “lumberjack” as the worst job in CareerCast’s annual ranking of 200 professions. The industry has a growth outlook of negative 13.33 per cent and an average annual salary of $36,267.

With bad news like this, it’s no wonder journalists adore Spotlight. But will this adoration translate to Oscar traction, especially in an antsy year that has already floated and then dropped would-be frontrunners like Black Mass and Steve Jobs?

It’s hard to say. Spotlight might be snagging super reviews, scoring 93 per cent on Metacritic and 97 on Rotten Tomatoes. But here are some of the words that keep showing up in those reviews: Humble, modest, patient, pragmatic, responsible, methodical, considered, conscientious, restrained.

The Academy is rarely galvanized by movies that are self-effacing and sturdy. Generally, stolid work-ethic descriptors like “thorough” and “meticulous” don’t interest Academy members, unless they’re being applied to the guy who’s detailing their Mercedes.

Best Picture noms usually carry big, bold adjectives like captivating, thrilling, moving, heartbreaking, dazzling, soaring, shattering, towering. The Academy loves those “ing” words.

Spotlight doesn’t hit those emotional high notes. There are no passionate “you can’t handle the truth” rants or even hyper-articulate Sorkinesque lectures about the glory days of old-timey analogue media. Everyone’s too busy poring over paperwork or eating cold pizza to make speeches. As reporter Michael Rezendes, Mark Ruffalo has one scene where he raises his voice and leaves a room, but that’s about it for obvious Oscar clips.

According to the Globe and Mail’s Barry Hertz, Spotlight is “not about fiery performances or thrilling set pieces.” Writing in the New Yorker, Anthony Lane suggests that one of Spotlight’s “major virtues is what’s not there,” meaning no sensationalized depictions of villains, victims or violence.

Again, Academy voters tend to like the things you put into a movie, not the things you leave out.

It’s even hard to find stars in Spotlight. Distributor Open Road has decided to forgo campaigning for Best Actor and Best Actress nominations and instead concentrate on supporting bids for the film’s wide, deep and democratic ensemble, which includes Ruffalo, Liev Schreiber, Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci and “that other guy” (the less known but equally fine Brian D’Arcy James). Rachel McAdams is reliably good, but she doesn’t have that whiff of tragedy that Oscar loves in a woman.

The filmmaking is likewise unshowy and hard-working. The story plays out against a mundane backdrop of bad coffee and khaki slacks and fluorescent lights and nondescript office cubicles, and director and co-writer Tom McCarthy just gets on with the job.

The cinematic strengths are there, but they’re almost perversely understated. And that could be a problem, especially when Spotlight is competing with films like The Revenant, in which Leonardo DiCaprio wrestles a bear, and Carol, in which glamorous Cate Blanchett falls into lush, swooning love.

We’ll see what happens with Spotlight’s ode to drudgy journalistic decency next year. Oscar buzz may be generated by journalists, but Academy members get the final say.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca