Login
A hagiographic portrait of the current pope that plays like something off PBS’ Great Performances, The Two Popes mistakes unnecessarily, often incongruous, camera flourishes with visual interest. The best argument for this movie is watching Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins deliver incredibly strong work like the veterans they are. Aside from that, The Two Popes is an exercise in party line Catholicism.
We bounce around in time from Jorge Bergoglio’s life in Argentina during the tumultuous 1970s to the present-day thorny relationship with Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, and all of it wrapped up in a glowing “man of the people” aura. The main dramatic points involve the political scheming required to find a new pope, including Ratzinger’s glad-handing and retail politicking. These two represent the ideological spectrum for the catholic church with Ratzinger exemplifying the old/displaced methods and Bergoglio as the newer/kinder approach.
The begrudging respect that develops between the two of them is only of interest because actors as gifted as Pryce and Hopkins are reciting it. The script itself does nothing to complicate a simplistic reading of Pope Benedict XVI’s reign as shrouded in controversy, secrecy, and displaced from the common man in contrast to Pope Francis’ liberalism and calls for transformative action. If you walk into this film thinking that Pope Francis was a bleeding heart and net positive for the church, then this will not complicate or call into question that symbolism.
There’s plenty of rot at the core of the church. Where are the prolonged discussions about the child sex abuse scandals, especially the various coverups? What about the financial corruption within the Vatican? These issues toppled Pope Benedict XVI’s tenure and revealed a man too attached to the institutions to look deeply at the problems and actions needed to correct them. The Two Popes would rather present cutesy moments of the two men ordering pizza and extoling the virtues of the Beatles.
Heavily sentimental in its portraiture of two papal figures, The Two Popes at least offers Pryce and Hopkins ample opportunity to shine. This is clearly the story about Pope Francis’ ascension to the role and Benedict merely exists as something for him to react against. Hopkins manages to wrap his keen intelligence into the controversial figure and make something recognizably human out of the icon. While Pryce speaks Spanish, Latin, and accented English while being by turns playful, saintly, and tortured.
Since this started life as a play, maybe it would’ve been better if it had merely been filmed as one. It needed less shaky camera work, less weird zooms and awkward tilts to try and make scene after scene of characters talking in cloistered rooms “energized.” Sometimes less is more and knowing when to pull back and merely observe can harness a story’s true power. Or that of two great actors.
