Mmm.. I'm not sure that a documentary would be the best thing for this particular story, to be honest. I think there are two stories to be told here - the story about Catholic Church's abuse of children and the story about the Spotlight team's telling of it. The Spotlight team story was the right story to be told by this film. There's a much larger story about the systemic abuse that should be, and I'm sure will be told by the documentary format. Whether that uses the Spotlight team's investigations as a device to tell it is another matter.
I guess - I suppose my feeling after a day or so since watching is that it didn't quite have the emotional impact that the story or subject matter deserves.
There were one or two scenes which were difficult but overall I felt the film barely scratched the surface really.
As you said, it was more telling the story of them getting the story out, than the actual story of abuse by Catholic priests.
I'm really not criticizing the films I thought it was very good and kept me glued throughout and actually did a very good job with a tough subject and making something like this gripping and interesting.
It's just that upon reflection, I feel that it could have been far weightier and more hard hitting.
But maybe that's not what they were going for.