A gripping tale until the very end

SOMETHING is rotten in the archdiocese of Boston, but uncovering a dirty truth involving the Roman Catholic Church - an institution that embodies the religious beliefs of the local population while also playing an integral part in their daily lives - is as difficult as it sounds.

Spotlight is a very fine film, a realistic retelling of how a team of journalists at The Boston Globe laboured to bring a decades-long pattern of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests to light, and how the Church was guilty of a cover-up.

The movie, directed by Tom McCarthy, pays tribute to the newspaper's achievements by telling it like it is, without embellishing the facts or glorifying the reporters at the heart of the story. As a result the script, co-written by McCarthy and Josh Singer, rings true, relying on the disturbing nature of the scandal itself and depicting the mundane elements of investigative reporting - extensive research, multi-source interviews and meticulous verification of the facts - in an utterly compelling manner.