Only late in the proceedings of writer/director Tom McCarthy's masterful Spotlight , not long before the two-hour mark of the 129-minute film, does a character really raise their voice. Only shortly thereafter does the director make what could be construed as his first rhetorical flourish. Given the drama inherent in Spotlight, that restraint is particularly admirable. The sexual abuse of children on the part of Roman Catholic priests in the Boston Archdiocese as revealed and conveyed by reporters of the Boston Globe could hardly have been more damning, more outrageous. The material could hardly be more dramatic. And yet, a story that would seem to require the dimensions of opera is handled like a precise, heartbreaking piece of chamber music by McCarthy and his uniformly excellent cast. Sounding beneath Spotlight's slowly-building theme genuine tragedy - we're reminded prior to the closing credits that this was and is a global phenomenon - i...