[Jim Moonan]

Two Popes is available on Netflix. So I watched it before turning in on NewYears Eve (before midnight, just to get a jump on the new year.)

What's not to like? There are moments when the crux of our human condition is being examined. Just not in the depth that it could be. The need for change is given an edge over the more pedestrian need to compromise. I understand that the movie creates a fantasy of the facts -- not much of the movie is an accurate story of what in truth happened. The film offers something of a mea culpa in the beginning by stating it is “inspired by true events” or something to that effect. But it did entertain and gave some good food for thought. Let’s continue here (without poisoning the food with invective language).

Let me start by counting the ways it reeled me in:

1. Anthony Hopkins
2. Jonathan Pryce
3. A breezy back and forth about the nature of God and the history of Christianity.
4. How good men are at making myths.
5. How good filmmakers are at making myths.
6. The scene shot in the Sistine Chapel that somehow makes it look like a cafeteria
7. The metaphoric Garden of Gethsemane that grows metaphors like oregano
8. The metaphoric wandering in the desert enveloped in mist
9. The ending scene of two flawed infallible men doing the tango together in a most fallible, perfect way bringing the whole debacle that is sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Church to an almost comical conclusion, but not quite.
10. Change vs. compromise
11. It had me at confessions.
12. Confessions! Confessions! Confessions!
13. The quest for perfection is a ruse
14. Watching two catechists talking and thinking their way through yet another cataclysmic event.
15. The sports analogy casually used to show hypocrisy as an innate human condition
16. There is a touch of Shakespearean tragedy in this, though I don’t know how or even why I say that.
17. The dig at the German culture. Touché.
18. Anthony Hopkins
19. Jonathan Pryce

I liked it like I liked the movie "Doubt" but more.
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[Susan McLean]

I liked the film, too. The acting is wonderful. Reality is more complicated (and stranger) than fiction, so films that are supposedly based on reality always smooth the jagged edges and favor a satisfying arc of story over the frustrating ambiguity and inconsistency of actual human behavior. I was aware of being manipulated even as I was watching the film and even without fact-checking the story. However, the story did cover many things I did not know, so it kept me guessing in that way, and the dialogue kept things interesting.

Susan

[Gail White]

I loved it (all the more because I've been to Castle Gandolfo and by chance saw a Corpus Christi procession in the streets).
I loved seeing the popes chatting in the Sistine Chapel as if it were their living room.
And wouldn't we all love to believe that these two actually watched the Argentina/Germany World Cup final together?

[Simon Hunt]

Enjoyed it very much, largely for the reasons Jim lists. I think there are too many movies about things blowing up and too many interchangeable romantic comedies--and not nearly enough movies that are predominantly about two people talking earnestly.

But, but...I think it dubious as history and facile as politics. It's an absolute valentine to Francis, who isn't quite the radical he is widely perceived to be. Or the sexy young pope. He's 83, I think. (Did you see him literally slapping the hand of a "fan" at St. Peter's a day or two ago? Fair enough, I guess. Looked like it hurt when she yanked his arm...)

Interestingly, after viewing the film, I read a take-down of it at First Things. Starting with a pro-Benedict bias, that writer views the film as a real attack on the former Cardinal Ratzinger. Starting from a bias that is, ahem, different than that, I thought the script and Hopkins's performance humanized the guy.

[James Brancheau]

You sold me, Jim. I'll have to catch that. Though I doubt it's better. Did you come up with the cafeteria remark? That's brilliant.

[Jim Moonan]

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I'm more forgiving than most when it comes to artistic license to blend fact with fiction. I felt like Susan did: I knew that the reality was more complicated and that there was a point of view being projected, but I took that all into account as I watched and the dialogue kept things interesting.

It's really worth the watch just to see Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce work.

The scenes in the Sistine Chapel are amazing. Yes, the cafeteria quip is mine. Although it was stunning ion one sense, it occur to me that it created a rather sterile look to the sacred place. Like a ornate trattoria/cafeteria. I've been inside the SC and that was not the feel I got, so it surprised me.
Then there's the scene where they both go into the Room of Tears that adjoins the SC and order out for pizza. That was pretty amazing. You want the whole story too be 100% true. I'll settle for the 50% that is because it touches, however biased, on a cataclysmic chapter in the the Catholic Church that is still ongoing. One could argue that it is a great time to be alive...

And the scenes that take place at the summer residence of the Pope (Castle Gandolfo) are excellent.
One point that was argued that I found eye-opening was whether the Catholic Church is slow to change or in fact is a harbinger of change. I can't recall what the context of the argument was, but it really stood on it's head the church's reputation for being woefully slow to change.
The most fascinating part for me was to watch the conflict inside Pope Benedict's head play out. Hopkins does a great job of understating the anguish while still allowing it to show.

The confessions heard by each of the other at the end are near-karmic for anyone who understands Catholicism's power of forgiveness.

Simon, Yes -- the recent footage of Francis slapping a woman's hand for yanking him backwards was refreshing in a strange way. Remember the time when Jesus lost his mind outside the temple? Ha!

And yes, Doubt is good. Maybe better.
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[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by Jim Moonan

Simon, Yes -- the recent footage of Francis slapping a woman's hand for yanking him backwards was refreshing in a strange way. Remember the time when Jesus lost his mind outside the temple? Ha!

More like the time a desperate, ritually unclean woman touched one of the tassels on the hem of Jesus's garment, thus forcing healing power to flow through him without his consent, and potentially (in the eyes of the religious authorities) rendering Jesus a ritually unclean pariah, too.

But touching a tassel on the hem of a garment is less violent than yanking on a geriatric guy's hand and pulling him off balance, so that he might break a hip. For all the Pope knew, she might have been trying to hold him to make him vulnerable for stabbing or something. Crowds are scary.

[James Brancheau]

Yeah, Julie's right, and I don't think that deserves mentioning. I'm not all that Catholic anymore, but I like Francis. The way some other no longer Catholic people do, I suppose. And he's actually less threatening than most conservatives in government these days. My understanding is that Benedict was far more doctrinaire, and an ass. More to the point, he had to leave to avoid inevitable scrutiny, condemnation.

[Allen Tice]

Francis recently quoted out loud a friend who opined that the Roman Church was two hundred years out of date. There's a scintilla of truth there, perhaps. Sociological scintilla. But I have no right to have an opinion. I'd guess that some things should never be "updated"; some surely ought to be. But, again, I'm not entitled to critique closely.