Grade: A-

The uninspired title might suggest an old-fashioned backstage theatre story, but “Spotlight” is actually one of the best real-life tales of investigative journalism since “All the President’s Men.” It focuses on the 2001-2002 Boston Globe series, in the paper’s titular section, detailing the systemic cover-up of clerical child abuse that had been ongoing in the city’s Catholic diocese for many years—the opening salvo in a scandal within the wider Church that continues to the present day. Writer-director Tom McCarthy, working with his co-scripter Josh Singer, has fashioned a riveting account of the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation, and he presents it in a spare, straightforward style that lets the sheer power of the narrative speak unencumbered by undue fuss or cinematic finery, except for superb ensemble acting and craftsmanship that serves the story unostentatiously.

That story is told from the perspective of the Spotlight staff—editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton) and his reporters, volatile Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), dedicated Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and detail-oriented Matt Carroll (Brian D’Arcy James)—all operating under the scrutiny of assistant managing editor Ben Bradlee, Jr. (John Slattery). It’s suggested to them by newly-appointed editor-in-chief Marty Baron (Live Schreiber), an outsider from Miami (who also happens to be Jewish in the overwhelmingly Catholic city), that they look more deeply into a recent story about a defrocked priest charged with numerous counts of molesting young boys during his years as a cleric.

The team takes up the work methodically, scouring past issues of their own newspaper for half-buried stories of alleged clerical abuse that weren’t energetically followed up, as well as diocesan registers that will reveal priests who’d been shifted from parish to parish or temporarily sidelined for unspecified reasons. Meanwhile a researcher studying pedophile priests is contacted for general information; Phil Saviano (Neal Huff), the head of a local survivors’ group, is invited to share his files with the staff; and Rezendes doggedly tries to get excitable lawyer Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci), who’s representing a group of victims, to persuade some of his clients to cooperate and help get sealed court documents made public. The indefatigable Pfeiffer will eventually secure poignant testimony from one victim, Joe Crowley (Michael Cyril Creighton), and even a startling admission from one defrocked priest, Ronald Paquin (Richard O’Rourke). And Robinson contacts a couple of bigwigs in the legal community—Eric MacLeish (Billy Crudup) and Jim Sullivan (Jamey Sheridan)—who may have helped the diocese to cover up the scandal.

Meanwhile the city and church establishment pressure the paper to tread carefully. Baron finds himself slyly courted and gently threatened by Bernard Cardinal Law (Len Cariou), while Robinson is approached by wheeler-dealer lay Catholic leader Peter Conley (Paul Guilfoyle) to consider his duty to the city and the church and the damage an expose might do to both. Nonetheless the investigation pushes on, even after a pause in the aftermath 9/11, and the first story based on it hit the stands early in 2002, with historic results.

McCarthy and Singer have weaved all these threads together skillfully, giving the overall narrative a sense of urgency without sacrificing clarity, and the cast respond with performances that add texture without going overboard. Ruffalo and Tucci are the most extroverted of the lot, the former bristling with anger as more and more evidence is collected and the latter offering a sharp-edged brand of idealism tinged with worldly wisdom. Keaton, fresh from his career-restoring turn in “Birdman,” presents a far mellower persona this time around as the veteran head of the Spotlight staff, while McAdams submerges her natural attractiveness to play a far plainer woman than usual and James likewise opts for understatement. There are more volatile turns from Guilfoyle as the oily, glad-handing Conley, Sheridan as the conflicted Sullivan, and Crudup as the silkily duplicitous MacLeish, as well as from Huff and Creighton as victims struggling to achieve long-delayed justice. But perhaps the most impressive performance of all comes from Schreiber, whose dry, understated turn as the recently-arrived editor-in-chief is a far cry from his more colorful one as Boris Spassky in “Pawn Sacrifice.”

Just as the cast avoid flamboyance, so do the craftsman. Stephen Carter’s production design is simple and stark, and the art direction (Michaela Cheyne), sets (Shane Vieau, William Cheng and John MacNeil) and costumes (Wendy Clark) follow the same pattern—as does Masanobu Takayanagi’s cinematography, which deliberately eschews the sinister gloss that Gordon Willis brought to “All the President’s Men” in favor of a more ascetic, gritty look. Howard Shore’s music is so unobtrusive that you might not even notice it.

“Spotlight” is, of course, a love letter to traditional investigative journalism—there’s plenty of nostalgia in the shots of papers rolling off presses and being plopped on porches. But it doesn’t simply glorify the Globe reporters or the paper they work for; after all, until prodded by Baron, they had blithely treated what was going on as the city as a whole did, with something very like indifference. When roused to action, however, they did their job well, in the process setting off shock waves that have had a profound effect on both state and church.

Grade: A-

You might think of Paul King’s adaptation of Michael Bond’s books about an accident-prone Peruvian bear as the polar opposite of “Ted”—a combination of live-action and CGI in which the animated ursine star is as lovable and sweet-tempered as Seth McFarlane’s is nasty and foul-mouthed. “Paddington” is thoroughly charming but evinces a British sensibility that might put off American audiences—which would be a shame, since this is the best family movie of its kind since “Babe.”

Of course, King’s screenplay has had to impose a narrative on the rambling, anecdotal stories in Bond’s series. And the one he selected, typically of children’s movies nowadays, involves an evil villain anxious to capture the gentle beast for nefarious purposes, combined with a message about the meaning of family. While the scenario seems trite—and in fact is—King manages it with a light touch that makes it more than palatable. He also invests it with moments of delightfully understated deadpan humor, as well as clever cinematic allusions and slapstick episodes that at their best recall the routines Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards pulled off in the Inspector Clouseau comedies (particularly since the bear’s hat looks a lot like the inspector’s). King even manages to add a touch of pathos to the mix by referring gently to the immigrant experience—not just in terms of Paddington’s exile from his home but by reference at one point to the Kindertransport that saved Jewish children from the Nazis in the late 1930s. And to top it all off, like the icing on an elaborately-decorated cake, he clothes the picture in a lusciously colorful production design (the work Gary Williamson, with assists from art directors Justin Brown and Stephen Lawrence and set decorator Cathy Cosgrove) that, in its most intricate instances, might be mistaken for scenes from “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”

From the narrative standpoint King begins by adding a nice backstory for the bear, a period prologue in which an intrepid explorer named Montgomery Clyde (Tim Downie) finds the cub’s relatives and teaches them English—and a love of orange marmalade—before returning home. Years later, the little bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw)—not yet called Paddington, of course—lives happily with his elderly Uncle Pastuzo (Michael Gambon) and Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton). But an earthquake carries off Pastuzo, and Lucy, ready for the old bear retirement home, helps her nephew stow away on a ship bound for London, where Clyde assured them they’d always find a warm welcome.

Our hero finds the city much less inviting that he expected. Not that people are taken aback by a talking bear (one of the best jokes occurs when a policeman, asked to put out an APB on a lost bear in a blue coat and red hat, remarks that it’s not much to go on)—they just ignore him. All, that is, except quirky Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins), arriving at Paddington Station from a vacation trip with her far less gregarious husband Henry (Hugh Bonneville) and their children Judy (Madeleine Harris) and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin). Though Henry, a by-the-book insurance risk assessor who sees the bear as trouble in the making, protests, Mary insists they take him home for the night, something that rather delights adventurous Jonathan but irks standoffish, easily embarrassed Judy.

It turns out that Henry’s fears weren’t misplaced, since Paddington—as Mary has named him—is quickly responsible for the flooding of the Browns’ bathroom in the first of the film’s slapstick set-pieces (a second involves his high-flying capture of a pickpocket). And it becomes apparent that Clyde will be difficult to locate, especially since the country’s scientific elite has expunged his expedition to Peru from the historical record. But with a little assist from Mr. Gruber (Jim Broadbent), an elderly Jewish antiques dealer, and Henry’s willingness to go to great lengths to help (the English love of men in drag for comic effect comes into play here), they fasten onto a hopeful trail. Unfortunately, by that time a blonde-banged taxidermist named Millicent (Nicole Kidman) is on Paddington’s tail, determined to add him to the exhibit of stuffed unusual species in the Natural History Museum. With the help of the Browns’ snoopy, lascivious neighbor Mr. Curry (Peter Capaldi), she almost captures the bear, in a sequence whose Rube Goldberg properties can’t go unnoticed, and later actually does. But of course the Brown family—including live-in relative Mrs. Bird (Julie Waters), a neat-freak old biddy who correctly diagnoses the problems in the household that Paddington has been instrumental in solving—come to the rescue (cue echoes of “Mission: Impossible”), bonding in the process.

King manages an almost perfect tone for this cheerful romp, which manages to be faithful to Bond without turning Paddington into just a mild relative of Winnie the Pooh. To be sure, despite Kidman’s game turn at doing a Fraulein Nazi type, the kidnap-and-escape business has a recycled air. But even the bits of business aimed at kids’ taste for, shall we say, icky stuff is handled gingerly, as in a sequence involving Paddington’s introduction to a toothbrush, or a trip into the sewers. And the cast show real comic chops, with Bonneville replacing his “Downton Abbey” duds for a dress, Hawkins and Walters pleasantly dotty and even the kids avoiding obnoxiousness. Capaldi suffers a bit from becoming Millicent’s confederate, but Broadbent, Downie and Matt Lucas (as a corpulent cabbie) are absolutely on target, and the voice work—especially by Whishaw, whose timid tone is perfect, but also by Gambon and Staunton—is excellent.

Even those who’ve never been introduced to Bond’s bear—children and adults both—should find “Paddington” droll and delightful.