This acting will bring you back to church.
The Two Popes
Grade: B+
Director: Fernando Meirelles (City of God)
Screenplay: Anthony McCarten (Bohemian Rhapsody)
Cast: Jonathan Pryce (The Wife), Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs)
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 2h 5m
By: John DeSando
“True friends challenge us and help us to be faithful on our journey.” Pope Benedict XVI
It’s hard to believe that two leaders so different in backgrounds and ideologies could come to compromise amicably and selflessly. In director Fernando Meirelles’s The Two Popes, Pope Benedict (Anthony Hopkins) and Pope Francis (Jonathan Pryce) come to appreciate each other’s conservative and liberal approach to the Catholic Church.
Benedict pokes at Francis in several private conferences where the clash is symbolized by Francis’s attempts to gain his resignation as an archbishop in Argentina, and Benedict ignores the request in order to set up Francis as the next Pope. That is, after Benedict resigns from fatigue and possibly in response to a financial scandal emerging right under his eyes.
However, history is not necessarily the reason to see this entertaining docudrama: The two actors are at the top of their game, and when together, they negate Oscar consideration because the Academy couldn’t probably decide between the two anyway. Hopkins plays old as if he were very old but smart, and Pryce is a master of several emotions together, given his ability to move his mouth and eyes in perfect synchronization. The recreated Sistine Chapel is a wonder of modern set design, worth seeing for itself.
Together they are the Butch Cassady and Sundance Kid of prelates, savvy and ironic enough to make their serious mission lighter and more humane than in reality it could be with 1 & ½ billion Catholics to serve. The film is especially good at fleshing out the reservations both protagonists have about their backgrounds that make them feel unworthy of the exalted charge they are given.
If you are fallen away Catholic like me, The Two Popes will help you regain your respect for the current scandal-ridden church. Missing, however, is more substantive dialogue to replace the flash backs and respectful pleasantries.
Francis is inspiring when he declares, “He who doesn't pray to the Lord prays to the devil.” Still no answers for agnostics, but a darn good drama.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
