michael keaton – filmcentric

In my head I had this in much the same category as the recent The Big Short, in the sense of being a largely-beige awards-baiting torn-from-the-headlines dude-centric drama, and it is those things. But Spotlight‘s real interest is in people’s power (specifically via journalism) to make a positive change in a society overrun by corrupt institutions, where that other film is about men self-interestedly taking advantage of corrupt institutions. The institution in Spotlight is the Catholic Church, and the allegations of child sexual abuse against it — a big story at the time (and since then), and one that was particularly noticeable in a largely Catholic community like Boston. The corruption that allowed the abuse to be covered up was endemic within the city, reaching the courts, the police and, indeed, the Boston Globe newspaper itself, which only upon the arrival in 2001 of new editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) started to take an interest in the case once again. It’s the investigative journalism of the Spotlight team (led by Michael Keaton’s Robbie) which is the film’s focus and it does a good job in getting across some of the painstaking research and journalistic legwork involved in putting together a story such as this, including the long period of months it takes. Along the way we get to see the backstage wrangling amongst the team (Mark Ruffalo’s reporter Mike is the one with the meatiest role), along with their dealings with lawyers (such as Stanley Tucci’s overworked attorney, rightly sceptical of the newspaper’s intentions) and with judges, while operating in secrecy to both hide the story from the church itself (which is seen pressuring those in power to shut it down) and from other papers. Naturally some of the timeline is rather telescoped (particularly the months after September 2011), but it’s a movie that avoids grandstanding speeches, preferring also to downplay any filmmaking tricksiness to put across a polished if visually unspectacular story of a group of people just trying to get something done. At that task, like the journalists it depicts, the film excels.

CREDITS
Director Tom McCarthy; Writers McCarthy and Josh Singer; Cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi 高柳雅暢; Starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Liev Schreiber; Length 129 minutes.
Seen at Cineworld Fulham Road, London, Sunday 14 February 2016.

From its very title, with those weirdly-placed parentheses, you know that this New York-set film about actors and egos has a precious, slightly fragile and very much self-indulgent quality. This becomes even clearer as the film begins to unfold in what appears to be a long unbroken take (albeit one spliced together digitally). But if it’s self-indulgent as a film, it’s also about hugely self-indulgent characters, specifically Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), once famous for his portrayal of a winged superhero in a series of big budget Hollywood hits (hmm). Fallen on something like hard times, Riggan has written, directed and is starring in a stage adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short stories, set to open imminently on Broadway, as a ploy to resurrect his reputation. He has conflicts with his actors (most notably Edward Norton as a mercurial stage talent with a disregard for film actors) and with his daughter Sam (Emma Stone, who hangs around the set doing odd jobs), but really it’s his ego with whom he’s most at war. Aside from the formal strategies, there’s also a mildly magical realist sense of a world of his imagination/paranoia/whatever that extends into his everyday life, as he is taunted by the growling voice of his Birdman alter ego. I can hardly fault any of the performances, and both Norton and Keaton are particularly excellent as different sides of the same rampaging egomania, with which those around them can only barely cope. So yes it’s brittle, and indulgent and just-so, but it’s all of a piece with its neurotic theatrical setting, and it all somehow works.

CREDITS
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu; Writers Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr and Armando Bo; Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki; Starring Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Zach Galifianakis; Length 119 minutes.
Seen at Cineworld Haymarket, London, Monday 29 December 2014.