Netflix’s The Two Popes – or, as my friend Will Leitch likes to call it, Coupla Popes! – is a showcase for two great, aged actors, Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins, playing the current and previous popes in conversation as Pope Benedict is about to step down as Pontiff and Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, tries to dissuade him through a wide-ranging conversation that covers almost the entire film. As a movie, it’s perfectly fine, often funny, generally thoughtful, a bit verbose, but also problematic in its portrayal of history. As a platform for the two actors, it’s quite good, with Pryce stealing much of the show with his performance and dedication to his accent.
The film is based on a play called The Pope that presents a largely fictionalized conversation between the two men, and that is a bit problematic, as the events are quite recent (mostly 2013) and the two men depicted are still alive. The script definitely brushes aside the very serious matter of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal and Pope Benedict’s role in covering it up; it’s broached, but the characters discuss it and dispense with it. There’s even a fictional confession given by Benedict to Bergoglio, which I find deeply troubling given the role of penance and the Seal of the Confessional in Catholic doctrine; sure, it’s fake, but it feels like an invasion into the character of the erstwhile Pope to assume what he might have said in such a confession.
We get a brief look at the conclave where Joseph Ratzinger is selected as Pope over Bergoglio, who we see was a distant runner-up in the voting, and thus becomes Pope Benedict XVI. He resigned as Pope in 2013, the first such abdication of a pontiff’s own volition in over seven centuries; Bergoglio was selected by the next conclave to replace him, becoming Pope Francis. The bulk of the movie covers Bergoglio’s visit to the Vatican to resign as Cardinal, during which Benedict reveals he plans to resign as Pope, a conversation that reveals their philosophical and theological differences. That meandering dialogue gives us frequent flashbacks to Bergoglio’s youth and to a period in the 1970s when his actions and inactions led to the detention and torture of two priests under his command. The flashbacks are powerful, as are the scenes where Cardinal Bergoglio recalls his actions, and shows remorse; in their entirety, they’re the best parts of the film.
Those scenes are also the best moments for Jonathan Pryce, who is really superb as Bergoglio, right down to a credible Argentine accent – in contrast to Hopkins, who makes scant effort at a German accent. Pryce is a solid likeness for Bergoglio, which helps his performance, but he also infuses the character with emotional depth and a lot of the charm that has made the real-life Pope Francis so popular. He’s the more interesting character of the two in reality, and Pryce brings that to life on the screen. I think it’s the best thing he’s done since those Infiniti commercials. It’s a contrast to Hopkins, who is playing a rather uncharismatic character, and does so accurately, almost as if he was more focused on getting Benedict’s mannerisms and old-man’s gait more than his persona.
As an overall film, however, The Two Popes is a more than adequate, just a bit hollow in the aftermath. The script moves along, thanks in large part to the flashbacks, although it’s so dialogue-driven that there are definitely long stretches where you want something to happen. There are too many odd closeups of the two actors – we get it, they’re old – but the re-creation of the Sistine Chapel is marvelous. There’s also quite a bit of humor in the movie, more than I would have expected and probably a lot more than there was in any real conversation between the two men. It was after watching it, however, that I realized how little the script bothered with the sex abuse scandal that has engulfed the Church for two decades, one that may have contributed to Benedict’s abdication and that exists because of the choices of men like him. Without that, it feels like there’s a giant elephant in the room and these two old men refuse to see it.