{"id":8901,"date":"2024-11-25T15:06:06","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T20:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8901"},"modified":"2024-11-25T15:06:06","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T20:06:06","slug":"the-two-popes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/25\/the-two-popes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Two Popes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Two Popes<\/strong> (2019)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Netflix\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 125 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (thematic content, some disturbing violent images)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Fernando Meirelles\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Anthony McCarten\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Bryce Dessner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Cesar Charlone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 27, 2019 (US, limited)\/December 20, 2019 (Netflix)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce, Juan Minujin, Luis Gnecco, Cristina Banegas, Maria Ucedo, Renato Scarpa, Sidney Cole, Achille Brugnini, Federico Torre, German de Silva, Lisandro Fiks.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spoken partially in Spanish and Latin w\/English subtitles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you share my warped sense of humor, you probably imagined The Two Popes<\/strong> as a \u201cRoad to\u201d meets My Fellow Americans comedy about a pair of ideologically different popes on a road trip filled with wacky misadventures and musical numbers. Perhaps a better title would be The Road to Vatican City. LOL! Isn\u2019t it fun to come up weird ideas like this?<\/p>\n

\u00a0All kidding aside, The Two Popes<\/strong> is mostly serious business with some occasional levity thrown in for good measure. Directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God), it stars Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs) and Jonathan Pryce (Brazil) as Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (the future Pope Francis) respectively. The bulk of the film takes place in 2012 when Bergoglio is summoned to the Vatican by Benedict. He thinks it\u2019s to discuss his desire to resign. Well, it is and it isn\u2019t. Benedict keeps dodging the issue and as we soon find out, the real reason for the cardinal being there is to discuss Benedict giving up the Papacy. It would make him the second Pope in the history of the Catholic Church to resign, the first being Gregory XII in 1415.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Benedict and Bergoglio couldn\u2019t be more ideologically different. German-born Benedict is a conservative who\u2019s all about tradition and traditional values. Not all Catholics were happy about his succeeding Pope John Paul II. One irate fellow calls him \u201ca Nazi\u201d. He wasn\u2019t willing to affect much-needed changes in the Catholic Church. He also covered up sexual abuse of children by priests and other clergy members. On the other hand, Bergoglio is a progressive from Argentina who believes changes must be made if they\u2019re to keep young people from leaving the Church. Although Benedict agrees with nothing Bergoglio says or thinks, the two develop a real friendship over the few days they spend together.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The most incredible thing about The Two Popes<\/strong> is how it humanizes the two main characters. Generally speaking, we don\u2019t know a lot about the Pope outside his public image as \u201cHis Holiness\u201d. We see him from a distance, geographically and personally. In essence, The Two Popes<\/strong> shows us the men behind the robe. Through black and white flashbacks, we learn how Bergoglio came to the priesthood. We\u2019re also shown how he fell from favor after he supposedly collaborated with Argentina\u2019s military dictatorship in the 70s and 80s. He expresses remorse that he was unable to save friends from being executed. We don\u2019t learn much about Benedict which is one of the film\u2019s few failings. I\u2019d like to know why he was called a Nazi. On the other hand, maybe that\u2019s precisely the point. We\u2019re not supposed to know much about him. I\u2019m think about the dinner scene where we Bergoglio sitting at a large table while Benedict eats alone in a small room. We see him through a doorway. The film\u2019s other failing is that it doesn\u2019t explore the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Church during Benedict\u2019s tenure. It\u2019s touched upon, but that\u2019s it. You\u2019d think the handling of it would be a major point of contention between the two holy men.<\/p>\n

Both lead actors turn in tremendous performances but that\u2019s hardly news when you\u2019re talking about actors of Hopkins\u2019 and Pryce\u2019s caliber. Their characters\u2019 conversations are positively riveting. You see, a movie as talky as The Two Popes<\/strong> could easily be a dry, somber affair, but it\u2019s not thanks to two lively performances. Yes, they\u2019re holy men but they\u2019re also human. They like to have fun. Benedict likes this silly Austrian show (Kommissar Rex<\/em>) about a police dog. Bergoglio likes to hum ABBA songs and dance the Tango. He also enjoys football and feels that a match between his country and Benedict\u2019s would really be something. In one scene, the two share a meal of pizza and Fanta. Hey, Popes are just like us! How about that?<\/p>\n

\u00a0In any event, The Two Popes<\/strong> is a great film. It\u2019s absolutely compelling. It\u2019s also educational. In the opening scenes, we get to see how a new Pope is elected. It\u2019s quite a process. As a non-Catholic, I didn\u2019t know this. I never expected The Two Popes<\/strong> to be this interesting. It\u2019s definitely one to check out on Netflix.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Two Popes (2019)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Netflix\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 125 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (thematic content, some disturbing violent images)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Fernando Meirelles\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Anthony McCarten\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Bryce Dessner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Cesar Charlone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 27, 2019 (US, limited)\/December 20, 2019 (Netflix)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce, Juan Minujin, Luis Gnecco, Cristina Banegas, Maria Ucedo, Renato Scarpa, Sidney Cole, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/The-Two-Popes-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8901"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9136,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8901\/revisions\/9136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}