The Big Short vs Spotlight

by Luke Jones

Warning – this review contains a fuckload of swearing

You get a lot of arseholes in the movies. There are the weaselly sorts, like Dick Thornburg in Die Hard, who exist for audiences to delight in their downfall. There are the violent sorts that remain oddly compelling despite their character flaws (Jake de la Motta in Raging Bull). There are the types you get in Gaspar Noé’s Love, presented in 3D for your viewing pleasure.

The Big Short and Spotlight focus on a particular sub-group; spectacularly fucking awful arseholes that also happen to exist in the real world. In the Big Short, they are the occupants of the banking industry that saw the world brought to its knees in 2008. In Spotlight, they are the members of the Catholic church both directly and indirectly involved in the sustained abuse of minors in Boston, Massachusetts. As villains go they’re hard to beat. Something that, sadly, has proven true in real life as well.

Spotlight: you'll never look at Luxo in the same way again

Both films tell stories that have garnered plenty of press over the past decade. Yet their differing approaches are fascinating; where the Big Short relies on every visual trick available to turn spreadsheets into cinema, Spotlight moves with an efficiency that must have Tarantino’s editors looking on with envy. The Big Short levels society with numbers, while Spotlight’s power comes from words both written and, shockingly, left unsaid. Each tackles a great pillar of American society and neither shies away from blaming those willing to turn a blind eye, including our de facto ‘heroes’.

Together they rebut the idea that the Hollywood system doesn't produce intelligent, adult drama any more. Both are worth your time, yet due to covering recent history they also exist as question marks without answers. Our protagonists may enjoy a sense of closure, but as an audience there is the sense that little has changed to prevent it all from happening again. This is most stark in the Big Short, a breezy two hours topped off by insight into the depravity of the human condition straight out of a Werner Herzog film.

Films can have the power to effect social change; try asking a SeaWorld shareholder if they’ve seen Blackfish. Perhaps if enough people go to see the Big Short they’ll realise that sometimes a deal can be too good to be true. Spotlight’s parallels remain around us, from the slowly unravelling murk of Geoffrey Dickens’ paedophile dossier to the still unbelievable crimes of Jimmy Saville. You don’t have to be a famous rich white guy to get away with child abuse, but it sure helps.