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Spotlight

I'm not going to lie I felt really uncomfortable at first about watching this movie. Sexual abuse of children is already an icky subject to cover in a film, but mixed with it the spiritual abuse of the priests doing it to children had me already apologizing to God for what I was about to see. But, surprisingly, I loved the movie.

There were three reasons I loved the movie: 1) the script, 2) the director, and 3) the cast.

If you don't know the basic plot of Spotlight it follows a group of newspaper writers at Boston's Golden Globe headquarters who are reporting a story about the victims who were sexually abused by 13 different pastors. As the story goes on, they find out that the Cardinal has been hiding these scandals since the 70's and there has been more than 90 priests reported to have been molesting children. Out of these 90 priests, none of them were prosecuted or sent to jail only moved to a different parish. The movie ends with the newspaper printing the story and more victims coming forward to reveal that 90 wasn't the number but it was instead 246 priests with an estimation of 1,000 victims.

My favorite part of the movie was the script because it had great lines such as when one of the lawyers for the abused children says, "It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to abuse it." This quote, originally Hilary Clinton's, refers to how it's not only the priest's fault for abusing the child but the whole Catholic community who brought the children towards the minister and then tried to hide it. I loved how the film didn't slam religion but slammed those who held the authority in the church as blameless and just. 

The direction in this movie was really cool as it played with different angles and shots. My favorite shot was a tracking shot the director took of the main character running down the street to one of the pastor's houses in his neighborhood after he found out he was a sex offender. One of the creepiest shots of the film was where there was a group of kids singing Silent Night at church and the priest was staring at them. It turned something so innocent into something that was sick and repulsive.

Mark Ruffalo is slowly making his way into becoming one of my favorite actors. He supports every scene he's in while providing explosive emotion while still looking natural while doing it. I really hope he wins this year, but I think it's going to go to Sylvester just to honor his Rocky years. The cast seems very together in this film, and I love Michael Keaton at the helm he makes a great boss.

I highly highly highly recommend watching this movie. Even if you are Catholic, you need to know about how abusive authority can be. I would rate this movie a 10/10 and put it over The Revenant.   

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