Review: The Two Popes

PLOT: On the eve of his retirement, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) is called to the Vatican for an emergency meeting with Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins), formerly one of his biggest opponents in the church.

REVIEW: Fernando Meirelles’s THE TWO POPES imagines a meeting between Pope Benedict and his future successor, Pope Francis. Here, the men are shown to be opponents in some ways, with Benedict a hard-line conservative while Francis is more of a modern thinker, hoping to bring the church into the 21st century. If it all sounds quite dry and a touch too dogmatic, be advised, THE TWO POPES is not that kind of movie. While eminently respectful to both men, THE TWO POPES isn't especially a film about faith. Rather, it’s more concerned with the political side of the church and what exactly goes into naming a pope, with the first act showing a papal conclave in fascinating detail as Benedict, the former Cardinal Ratzinger, jockeys for favor amongst the electing cardinals.

Bergoglio unexpectedly finds himself on the receiving end of a considerable amount of votes, a fact that gets Benedict’s wheels turning. The meat of the film happens when Benedict summons him to Rome to explain that he’s resigning as pope, and, wholly unexpectedly, wants Bergoglio, one of his harshest critics, to succeed him.

Mereilles, working from a script by THE DARKEST HOUR’s Anthony McCarten, keeps things from ever getting too dry by injecting the film with a lot of humor. Much is mined from Benedict’s complete ignorance of pop culture, with him fascinated by a tune Bergoglio hums that he assumes is a hymn, but is actually “Dancing Queen” by Abba. Later, he asks him whether he’s ever heard of John Lennon as if he was an artist he's discovered that no one else could possibly know about. His tastes are a touch more refined until he excitedly shows Bergoglio his favorite TV show, a German cop show called “Rex” about a crime-solving dog. Hopkins is wonderful in the part, looking quite a bit like Ratzinger and giving him a certain sense of mischief that makes him endearing.

However, the movie belongs to Jonathan Pryce as the future Pope Francis, with much of it devoted to his own crisis of conscience. He knows being pope is his destiny, but he’s hellbent on avoiding this fate as he sees himself as undeserving. Much time is spent on flashbacks, showing him as a young man (played by Juan Minujín) when he wound up playing a controversial part in Argentine’s “Dirty War”, actions that haunt him to this day. Pryce plays him as unerringly humble but also utterly compassionate and full of humor, with him shown to take great joy in joking around with this fellow soccer fans and playfully bantering with Benedict.

What THE TWO POPES does, which is extraordinary, is that it makes you think of them as two people rather than pontiffs. We’re used to seeing them as something just short of divine, but the film goes through great pains to show you that they’re nothing of the sort. At the end of the day they’re just men, some more close-minded than others, but both compassionate. All of the church controversies are tackled, from the stance on homosexuality to the Vatican’s involvement in covering up sexual abuse in the church, and no one, not even Francis, is let off the hook easily. Again, that’s why this is such a good movie. It doesn’t lionize or defend them, but it does help you understand them and demystify a role that’s still shrouded in years and years of tradition.