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Spotlight · written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy · 2015
Scene 99 of 143 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two
The Boston Globe's Spotlight team pries open the Catholic Church's decades-long cover-up of child abuse — one sealed record, one silenced victim at a time.
Robby's Spotlight team operates comfortably inside its own routine, prospecting a modest police-corruption story under a departing editor's cover.
Baron's outsider question exposes what the paper has never done: investigate whether Cardinal Law knowingly protected an abusive priest.
The team sets aside its own project and enters unfamiliar territory: survivor networks, a hostile plaintiff's lawyer, and a legal fight to unseal church records.
The team pays the cost of the work — hearing survivor testimony, chasing MacLeish's stonewalling, and combing church directories for a hidden pattern of reassigned priests.
The directory search and Sipe's estimate deliver what they set out for: confirmation that the abuse spans dozens, then eighty-seven, priests across Boston.
Weeks later, Sacha emerges from the T-stop as autumn sets in over Boston.
In a nearly empty bar, Phil Saviano angrily confronts Sacha for going silent on victims for six weeks since 9/11, accusing Spotlight of abandoning the story before storming out.
Marty tells Ben the team should go back on the Church story now that 9/11 coverage has wound down, and thanks him for carrying the burden of that coverage.
This scene
A crappy hotel room. ESPN on TV, a suitcase, clothes, papers everywhere. Mike takes a burrito out of the hotel microwave, tries to pick it up when his phone RINGS. He grabs the phone.
MIKE (INTO PHONE)
Hey.
ROBBY (OVER THE PHONE)
How’s South Beach?
MIKE (INTO PHONE)
I’m in Boynton Beach. Remarkably
different place. What’s up?
ROBBY (OVER THE PHONE)
Mitch Garabedian called me today.
MIKE (INTO PHONE)
Why’d he call you?
ROBBY (OVER THE PHONE)
Because he knew you’d yell at him.
He refiled the docs.
MIKE (INTO PHONE)
(yelling)
What? Robby, those docs are public
now, we gotta get them before anyone
else does...