Hollywood Road

On November 7th, an ordinary Friday, Focus appeared in a total of ten theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston at the same time. The praise attracted a large number of viewers to watch. ?

Especially Murphy's fans and some former victims of Catholicism have long been waiting for the film.

During the daytime on Friday, the attendance rate of all theaters showing Focus was over 90%, and this is a statistic that excludes professional film critics and members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who can watch for free.

For this film, professional film critics have long been gearing up and preparing to do a lot.

Like this kind of film related to current affairs, their comments will naturally attract more fans, not to mention that the main protagonist or villain of the film is still Catholic.

Just like Hollywood in the past, professional film critics are also cautious when it comes to religious themes, for fear of causing unnecessary trouble to you, but it is different now. From last winter to now, Catholicism has been exposed by the media for countless scandals. Attacking Catholicism can be said to be completely correct in value orientation and political correctness.

It is probably because many film critics couldn't wait to go to the theater to watch this film right after the screening began. By Friday afternoon, many well-known film critics' comments about Focus appeared on the Internet or social platform columns.

In Focus, Murphy Stanton expanded from a scandal to a criticism of the system, just like a thick documentary literature-powerful narrative, unraveling, advancing layer by layer, meticulously organized, well-organized, rigorous and neat, without Sensational and neatly edited, it perfectly restored the reporting journey of a media person. At the end of the end, he answered the phone at the end of the office and said hello: Focus. And Institutional Ugly is perfectly put on the screen, not only excavating the root of the Catholic scandal, but also pointing to the deep indifference of human nature, which is thought-provoking.

— Kenneth Turan

Murphy Stanton's new film truly reproduces the process of the Focus Reporting Group investigating a large number of Catholic priests' sexual abuse scandals. The rhythm of the film is similar to that of a thriller. The film also seems to deliberately downplay the character creation and drama, but it is fascinating with the calm and steady pace and the subtle plot development. The soundtrack, photography and editing have played an excellent auxiliary role. The performances of the leading actors are just right, and everyone has a superb performance. The most successful part of the film is to separate child molestation and sexual orientation, pointing out that this is the top-down effort of the church, the most filthy organization in the world. The system is ugly. After watching it, people will lose all awe of religion. Although the content is cruel, it is very comfortable to watch.”

— Todd McCarthy

Almost every critic review that appears on the Internet is positive.

In addition, the Boston Globe, which is closely related to the incident, also set up a column on the front page to comment on the film.

Under the control of Murphy Stanton, who is also the screenwriter and director of the film, Spotlight has an extremely grim image style. On the one hand, the film's cool and dark tone successfully creates the pain and peace before the scandal is revealed. Depressed atmosphere; on the other hand, in order to highlight the authenticity and objectivity, the film uses a bystander-style camera position and a relatively neutral medium-to-close shot in most scenes.

At the same time, Focus also shows amazing maturity in narrative. Throughout the film, the film neither magnifies the pain of the victims in order to win the audience's sympathy, nor deliberately vilifies specific clergymen in order to establish villains, nor The news practitioners in the Focus column group are deliberately elevated. The film always focuses on the deciphering of the case and the truth. When the report is completed and the case is revealed, the film stops abruptly. It is really memorable.

The method used in Focus is very restrained and restrained. It neither deliberately makes moral judgments, does not deliberately preach, nor deliberately shapes the characters, but after the film ends, its values, emotions and The characters are all extremely vivid, which reflects the skill of director Murphy Stanton.

During the advancement of the plot, the film has truly achieved a quiet and natural flow in the shaping of the characters and the final presentation of the film's motif. In other words, this is a serious film similar to a documentary. It uses the least Sensational techniques achieve the most sensational effect.

In general, the film Focus has a calm and restrained lens, clean and neat editing, a plot that grabs people, and emotions that catch people's hearts. I believe that all viewers who have watched the ending will have the same feeling, that is, in the seemingly peaceful Below the image, director Murphy Stanton endows the film with the power to shock the soul!

All kinds of praise from the media are thrown at the heads of Focus and Murphy as if they don't want money. It seems that this film is the best Hollywood film this year.

On the one hand, the influence of Murphy and the film is huge, and it can be called a masterpiece in itself; on the other hand, this is also a kind of continuation of the Catholic scandal exposed by the media last year.

Of course, most people still prefer to beat the dog in the water.

After the opening day, Rotten Tomatoes collected 55 film reviews about Focus, with a favorable rate of 97% and an average score of 8.8; authoritative media's comprehensive evaluation metacritic included 45 media ratings, with an average score of up to 8.6 points!

It's fine if it's just praise from the media and film critics, but the word-of-mouth of the film's fans has also exploded.

netee theater audience score B included 6876 user ratings, and the average score of Focus was 9.1 points.

Ordinary fan users on fan sites like ImdB and social platforms have received endless praise for Focus.

Focus on the sexual assault incident itself is not the focus of the film Focus, because it is easy to fall into the gimmick of negative energy overload and selling topics. Murphy devoted most of his pen and ink to the process of exposing the scandal. The film does not intentionally 'focus' on god-making. And every character is full and real, making the audience feel the same and can't help but examine themselves. Maybe the bigger the screen, the more front row, the more you can feel the charm of performances and dramas , This is also a shocking force that is not available on the small screen. The list of blockbuster movies in the final subtitles is quite shocking, so after the end credits are played, the audience is silent, and after a long time, the applause from the audience is fresh enough!

Although the film is unlikely to be loved by ordinary movie fans like Dark City due to its subject matter, quite a few people still gave Focus a perfect score of 10!

After watching Focus in Toronto, I watched it twice today. Every time I walked out of the cinema, I was very moved. On the one hand, I was moved by the journalists' unrelenting pursuit of the truth and their self-restraint spirit in the face of the truth. On the other hand, I was moved by the excitement brought about by seeing the ugliness under the shelter of power will eventually be exposed in the world.

In today's Internet age, although professional film critics still exist and have a certain influence, various social platforms also provide channels for some professional film fans to express their opinions.

Director Murphy Stanton did not show off suspense or gimmicks in the movie, nor did he use any scars and breasts of the victims of this scandal to attract attention. On the contrary, the narrative is confident and low-key. The technique, the sharp, seamless and coherent high-editing have won respect and unique energy for this movie; the clear backbone close to the documentary literature carries the whole story with many contexts, and the balance between the performances of multiple characters is well controlled. Multiple factors interact with each other. Intertwined and delicately connected, it leads the audience step by step, tirelessly towards the end.

This film has a tight rhythm and a calm and complete narrative. What is commendable is that even though Murphy Stanton advocates the simplicity and efficiency of storytelling this time, he still successfully arranges the detailed description of each character and the emotional capture. In every detail and every line, it shows the highest confidence in the use of film language and camera hints.

Others set their sights on the whole event reflected in the film.

The essence of faith is not the worship of a god or a doctrine, but the belief in people and the world; trust that we can overcome our own limitations, overcome our selfish desires, and save ourselves and others. Quote the internal spirit of the Catholic Church in the movie Richard Sapp, pathologist and one of the witnesses: The church was founded by men, and it will pass with time; but my faith will always be in my heart.

No matter in the eyes of the audience, Focus does not reach the height of Dark City, but its reputation is also very good. Such a reputation is enough for a film to be screened.

On the second weekend of November, after three days of screenings on the weekend, Focus received more than 700,000 US dollars in box office from North American theaters, and the box office of a single theater reached 70,000 US dollars!

This kind of film performance and word-of-mouth reputation gave 20th Century Fox great confidence. They decided to change their strategy a little bit, starting next weekend, and expand the screening theaters of Focus on a large scale, and quickly reached an agreement with the North American Theater Alliance agreement.

North American theater companies are also happy to show Murphy's films. Numerous past facts have proved that Murphy's films can bring them huge profits.

In addition to cooperating with 20th Century Fox and CAA's public relations, Murphy has also been paying close attention to the latest data of the film, but what he didn't expect was that Bill Rossis brought A somewhat unexpected news came. 8