Jude Anthany Joseph's third feature, after Ohm Shanti Oshana and Oru Muthassi Gadha, released on Prime Video at midnight today. This seemingly feel-good film, also seemingly made in limited spaces and with a shoestring budget, tackles a concept and issue never tested before in Malayalam cinema circles. In Sara'S, we follow the life of Sara Vincent (Anna Ben), a young, bubbly, yet unapologetic filmmaker who struggles to make it big in the industry. She continuously assists male directors and is in the scripting works of her dream film. Sara has decided, from her school days, that she would not bear any kids. This is when she meets Jeevan (Sunny Wayne); her relationship with him subsequently brings her ideology and decision into a confrontation with the established norms of society, family and child-rearing. Anna Ben in Sara'S The best aspect in which Sara'S has excelled, without doubt, is its hard-hitting taut script. Debutant Akshay Hareesh deserves praise for managin...
Note: Spotlight is the 2016 Academy Award winner for Best Picture.
Depicting a challenging topic such as the Catholic Church child abuse scandal might have appeared as a challenge to director Tom McCarthy and writer Josh Singer, but the way the duo has executed this movie is a testament to the success of factual storytelling.
Depicting a challenging topic such as the Catholic Church child abuse scandal might have appeared as a challenge to director Tom McCarthy and writer Josh Singer, but the way the duo has executed this movie is a testament to the success of factual storytelling.
Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), a self-contained and observant journalist, arrives at the Boston Globe as the new chief editor. The year is 2001- a few months before 9/11. He encounters Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton), the editor of the Spotlight team, the oldest continuously operating investigative journalism team, and assigns to the team the task of following up the hidden, but infamous Geoghan case and its subsequent cover-up by the Catholic Church. The team, consisting of Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Matt Carrol (Brian D'Arcy James) and supervised by Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery), plunges head on to the case. In course of months, they uncover a shocking chain of child abuse cases by priests in the Boston Archdiocese and an even more jaw-dropping cover-up by the Church. They knock doors, they sit hours under dim light-bulbs and in public libraries sifting through names, they get kicked out of houses, they are interfered by sudden phone calls- but all with pure journalistic spirit to the uncover the truth. The focused team investigates their way to the ultimate truth, albeit the group of journalist's mixed feelings and de-prioritization by events( like the 9/11). They face moral limitations from different aspects of the society but nothing stops them.
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| A still from Spotlight |
Like a procedural investigate drama, the movie picks off momentum from nothing, a set of scrambled jigsaw puzzles are put together to figure out the truth, but without any exhausting and nerve racking subplots or melodramatic scenes (except for Mark Ruffalo's gripping monologue). In a world where the essence of true journalism, its journalists, is eclipsed by available-on-the-finger-tip info and news, Spotlight resonates a morale of seeking truth without glorifying the seekers in front of the audience and leaving that job to the audience themselves. A fine newspaper drama to cherish and ponder upon, this in my own judgement, is Tom McCarthy's magnum opus in its own kind.
Packed with a dazzling ensemble cast, like last year's Birdman (read Birdman review here), Spotlight makes good use of its cast who provide justice to the real-life characters. Mark Ruffalo portrays the anxious and truth-thirsty Mike Rezendes, where Ruffalo graces the screen with his charming and indulging performance. Rachel McAdams dons the suit of the kind yet unstoppable reporter Sacha Pfeiffer. They join the likes Michael Keaton, John Slattery, Liev Schreiber, Stanley Tucci who deliver their best without any damage to its gripping narrative.
Talk about the narrative; it stands supreme, nevertheless far more than any other aspect of the movie. Like mentioned, it picks off from nothing through conference rooms, libraries, offices, phone calls, shocking revelations till the climax of the movie. The depth and intensity of the story is brought out by McCarthy-Singer duo, when Stanley Tucci utters the lines, " If it takes a village to raise a child, it take a village to destroy one." A fact-based narrative is hard to tell, what with all the heightened emotions and needless scenes. But Spotlight is a rare film in those terms- at the same time it grips us with investigative procedures, it appeals to the heart with its stand-out principles of finding the truth and standing for good ( which might seem lame and hollow when I write it, but go see the movie).
When critics turn to Venice and Toronto during the Oscar season, Spotlight will satiate their hunger for a mature drama that will set the bar high for art films.
When Hollywood was suffering from agonizingly disappointing "docudramas" that turn to "melodramas", in comes Spotlight, with its enthralling plot and eye-catching performances and its complex yet well-executed subject, one of the year's finest, riveting and refined newspaper dramas of film history.
Reviewer© rating : 5 STARS
MPAA rating : R (for some language including sexual references)
Runtime: 129 mins
Reviewer-The Blog©
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MPAA rating : R (for some language including sexual references)
Runtime: 129 mins
Reviewer-The Blog©
For updates on reviews, please like Reviewer's Facebook page- click the icon on top of the page.
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