BEFORE: Anthony Hopkins carries over from "The Father" - to a film with some very different kind of "Fathers" - the Holy Fathers. I showed this film to my parents, I think in mid-2020 during the pandemic, when I was able to start visiting them again, but I did not watch it with them, because it didn't fit into my linking schedule at the time. Now it's one of the last films I showed them before they moved into their apartment at the elder-care facility. Because it has so few name actors in it, it took me about TWO YEARS to link to it - really, the only place I could put this was between two other films with Anthony Hopkins, or link to Jonathan Pryce, which I can't do right now. So it's sandwiched in here to clear it off my list.
I was talking about religion yesterday when I was talking about my Dad, he served as a Catholic deacon for over 40 years, part of the first class of deacons in the Boston diocese, who came out of the seminary in 1976, I think. So yeah, my parents really dug this one, but they're big on the Pope - me, not so much.
THE PLOT: Behind Vatican walls, the conservative Pope Benedict XVI and the liberal future Pope Francis must find common ground to forge a new path for the Catholic Church.
AFTER: Hey, remember that crazy time in 2013, when the Pope QUIT? And we all thought, wait, is that something that a Pope can DO? Like the Supreme Court, the appointment of a pope is intended as a lifetime position - meaning that, usually, there's only one way out. But we've had Supreme Court justices retire for health reasons, or just because they're plain old - and people are living longer these days, so we should try to understand. Sandra Day O'Connor retired from the court in 2005, and she's still alive at 92 - but even if she's your favorite first woman justice, do we want a 92-year old person on the Supreme Court? Jeez, let the woman rest already, she earned it. David Souter also stepped down in 2009 at the age of 70 and then Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018 at the age of 82. By contrast, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020 and she was so tough that I think she still shows up, but it's just to work out at the court's gym.
Pope Benedict XVI - or Pope Benny (formerly Cardinal Ratzinger, aka Joey Ratz or "Ratzi the Nazi") - had medical reasons to retire, sure. He was past the typical age of retirement for cardinals (75) when he was elected Pope in 2005 - then he was diagnosed with a heart condition, then had a stroke which made him half-blind. But as of this writing (barring any late-breaking news from last night) he's still alive at 95, and he's the oldest person to have ever held the office of Pope. He would have been the oldest SERVING Pope if he hadn't stepped down when he did. Jesus, somebody set him up with Queen Elizabeth - JK. Seriously, though, Ratzi celebrated his Platinum Anniversary last year - that's 70 years as a priest.
Pope Benny is still around - he first moved to what used to be called the Pope's "summer home", which as you might expect, is nicer than the main residences of 99% of humans. Castel Gandolfo is the secondary Papal Palace, on a 135-acre garden estate - so, nice gig. But he only lived there until the work was completed on his retirement villa, at the Mater Ecclesiaste Monastery in the Vatican Gardens near St. Peter's. Another big garden, and it's a place that used to house 12 nuns - I wonder if they stayed on as his "harem". Again, nice gig.
The film starts with Benedict's election (the process is complicated, it involves the Cardinald writing names on pieces of paper, as in "Survivor", and then for some reason little wooden bingo balls are also involved. Then they string the names together with a needle and thread for some reason, and they burn the votes. Like the Electoral College, a majority is needed, 77 in this case, and if no candidate has enough votes, then they vote again. The votes burn black each time there's no winner, then white smoke is released when the new Pope is chosen. Seriously, it's a wonder that this wasn't turned into some kind of reality show the last time it happened.
And then, during Benny's term as Pope, something happens, and they don't really say what it is in the film, but it's got something to do with the priest scandals, you know what I'm talking about here. Benedict didn't believe in prosecuting the pedophile priests, he favored moving them around to other parishes, hoping against hope that they'd behave after the move, and, well, they didn't. The church was losing money after all the lawsuits, and Benny's time as Pope was tainted by the public accusations of the cover-ups. So, what to do? So he called up the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, who wanted very badly to resign, having had some issues of his own with the church, but also he was the man who came in second in the last Pope-lection, so perhaps Benny was thinking that this man should have won, and then things might have gone different for him, and for the Church.
And so the soon-to-be ex-pope met with the future pope, and they realized that they represent two very different points of view - one of them is conservative, and the other one is SUPER-conservative. HINT: The German one is the stubborn, more conservative of the two, also like many Germans he turns out to have zero sense of humor - but Jorge Bergolio, on the other hand, is a super-fun, super-likeable guy and if the worst thing you can say about him is that he favored giving communion to divorced people and gay people, well, come on, either we're all God's children or we're not, right? Bergolio was also engaged once when he was young, as we see in the flashbacks, so that's different, too, we now have a Pope who we think probably had sex before, and with a woman, to boot. So that's different.
Bergolio got driven by limo to the Pope's summer estate, and got a taste of the good life, probably realizing that being Pope is a pretty sweet deal. The two of them discussed matters concerning the future of the Church, then took a helicopter back to the Vatican. Again, pretty flippin' sweet. Then there are more flashbacks that are pretty much a puff piece, to persuade any remaining members of Team Benedict to switch over to Team Francis. The two men confessed their sins to each other and absolved each other, which seems awfully convenient, before Ratzi mentioned that he wanted to resign, and for some reason, Bergolio tried to talk him out of it. Dude, what are you DOING? This all could be YOURS, man, the summer estate and the helicopter and you get to see the Sistine Chapel any time you WANT!
Bergolio didn't want to become Pope, but really, isn't that exactly the kind of man that SHOULD become Pope? We here in the United States could learn a lot from this, especially with the midterm elections coming up. This may sound a bit crazy, but I do believe that anybody who WANTS the job of congressman or President should be automatically discounted. If you think about it, we're not currently electing the most qualified candidates, we're electing the ones that look better on TV, or pay for the better ads, and therefore we're just getting rich people elected, not qualified ones. Even if you took the money out of the equation, all of it - the PAC money, the lobbyist money, the bribe - sorry "contribution" - money, and their own personal pre-election wealth - if all things were equal, which they aren't, then we'd still be electing the most ambitious candidates instead of the most qualified ones. So therefore, anybody who WANTS the office shouldn't get it - we really should find a way to determine who the most qualified candidates are, and then vote them into office without telling them. These people, ideally, would be smart enough to do the job, smart enough to know that it's not a great or profitable job, but a public service job, and also smart enough to know that once elected by surprise, it would be both their civic duty to hold the office and their responsibility to do a good job.
A year after Pope Benny's meeting with Jorge from Argentina, he announced his resignation, and Jorge got the most votes, becoming Pope Francis. If all the debate over religious dogma and practice is too much for you - I know it was for me - at least tune in for the closing credits, which feature clips of the two lead actors, in character as the two popes, watching a soccer game together - and it's the World Cup final, between the teams from their home countries, Germany vs. Argentina. Like several films I could mention that I've watched lately - *cough* "Eternals" *cough*, the mid-credits scene is the absolute best part of the whole film, hands down.
Oddly, my last three films all share something in common - they all have more than one actor playing the same adult role. In "The Lost Daughter", Jessie Buckley played the younger version of Olivia Colman's character, and in "The Father", two actresses played Anthony's daughter at different times in the film. Here one actor played the future Pope Francis, and another played him in the flashbacks. This is not extremely common in films, so it's an odd coincidence that I don't know what to do with.
I think there was a missed opportunity here, instead of just a film on Netflix, this could have been a whole series, like a sit-com. Just imagine the opening narration: "On February 11, Joseph Ratzinger was asked to remove himself from the office of Pontiff - that request came from the man above. Deep down, he knew God was right. With nowhere else to go, he appeared at the papal residence of his friend, Jorge Bergoglio - several years earlier, Jorge had ALSO wanted to resign from the church. Can an ex-pope and a current Pope share a Vatican City apartment, without driving each other crazy?" Oh, yes, and I would title that show "The God Couple".
Also starring Jonathan Pryce (last seen in "Carrington"), Juan Minujin (last seen in "Focus"), Luis Gnecco, Sidney Cole, Lisandro Fiks, Maria Ucedo, Willie Jonah (last seen in "The Iron Lady"), Thomas D Williams, Achille Brugnini, Federico Torre, German de Silva, Libero De Rienzo, Joselo Bella, with archive footage of Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, Diane Sawyer (last seen in "Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg".
RATING: 5 out of 10 slices of Vatican City pizza (it's sacre-licious!)
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