‘Spotlight’ May Have Won the Toronto Oscar-Buzz Race (Vanity Fair)

‘Spotlight’ May Have Won the Toronto Oscar-Buzz

Esquire – Sept. 14, 2015

By Richard Lawson

To say that a movie starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel McAdams, directed and co-written by indie favorite Tom McCarthy, and that already earned raves at the Venice Film Festival, has come out of nowhere is maybe not entirely reasonable. But amidst all the chatter about big performances in The Danish Girl, or big-thinking buzz about Charlie Kaufman’s animated wonder Anomalisa, Spotlight, a sober, economical reporting procedural, wasn’t getting a lot of big hype in Toronto before it screened for press this morning. That’s all over now, though, as Spotlight has swiftly emerged as an Oscar favorite, if not the Oscar favorite, at the festival.

With good reason. McCarthy’s sharp, incisive, quietly moving drama tells a knotty story with boundless intelligence, wit, and insight. Read more.