The Two Popes - Review

The Two Popes

NETFLIX Original Film

“The Two Popes” is a biographical drama film directed by Fernando Meirelles and written by Anthony McCarten. It stars Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict XVI and Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (later Pope Francis).

In 2005, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. He is called to Vatican City following the death of Pope John Paul II to elect a new pope. Bergoglio is considered by some cardinals as an alternative against the frontrunner, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is eventually elected pope and becomes Pope Benedict XVI. Seven years later, the Catholic Church becomes embroiled in what becomes known as the Vatican leaks scandal involving pedophile priests which then Cardinal Ratzinger had personally handled, in which the offending priests had been returned to a different parish where they continued abuse of children.

Meanwhile, Bergoglio wants to resign from his position as Archbishop but he cannot get the Pope to answer his letters. So, Bergoglio tries to persuade the Pope to accept his letter of resignation, but Benedict angrily rejects the idea, saying it would appear to the world as a vote of no confidence in Benedict’s leadership and weaken the Catholic Church.

Eventually, Benedict confides in Bergoglio about his intentions to resign the papacy and that he also he has changed his mind about Catholic traditions and now sees change (a Bergoglio potential papacy) as being essential for the future of the Catholic faith. A couple of weeks later, Cardinal Bergoglio is elected Benedict’s successor in the 2013 papal conclave and becomes Pope Francis.

REVIEW: There are an estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, according to Vatican figures with more than 40% of the world's Catholics living in Latin America. And while I am not Catholic I found this story abundantly curious to me. And what I learned is while the many scenes between Pope Benedict and the eventual Pope Francis are predicated on speculation and some implausibility, I still found overall their combined stories; men from different background, different languages and uniquely deferent past personal pains still managed to have rather convincing discussions and debates in the moment.  A verbal jousting of their central beliefs and responsibilities as devout men of faith through the prism of different deep seeded ideological beliefs.

On a side note the film does not do complete justice to both men’s somewhat tainted past. While the film goes into great detail about Francis’s troubles regarding allegations of his youthful involvement of the Navy's kidnapping of two Jesuit priests, Orlando Yorio and Franz Jalics, in May 1976, during Argentina's Dirty Wars, the film hardly ever mentions Benedict’s youth in 1943 when he was 16 and was drafted with many of his classmates into the Luftwaffenhelfer program of the German Nazi party.

Ultimately, in an odd way the two popes were similar to the movie and TV program “The Odd Couple” where one took on the persona of being the fussy, fastidious and traditionally finicky “Felix Unger” and the other sounded more prone to unpredictability, spontaneity and impulsiveness in “Oscar Madison”. And while they did share these subtle dynamics, the two popes never lost their basic need to always doing what they thought what was best for the church and their faith in God that they loved.

Anthony Hopkins is always great in whatever he does but so is Jonathan Pryce here. They have really great sensational chemistry together when they are in the room alone talking with one another. But it’s my belief it will be Pryce who will get the Oscar nomination as Best Actor next month with his fluid portrayal of Francis through his fluent seamless transitional speaking of Spanish, Latin, Italian and English and back again to his equal gift in capturing the personality, temperament and natural nuance traits that are so uniquely to the current Pope Francis.

“The Two Popes” is less a cinematic movie and more of a cinematic portrait of examination two important men in history. We get to witness them sharing their professional and personal struggles as well on their dealing with complicated matters involving their Catholic faith and their deep moral responsibilities while being the leading stewards to that faith.

3.00 Stars