After the two rewritten and fairly acclaimed streaming works Marriage Story and The Irishman, Netflix's third star-powered premiere will be arriving shortly. But this time it will not be the same cheer in the digital bush.
Here, Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce pull on clergy to play a fictional interpretation of what happened behind the Vatican's backdrop in 2013 when Pope Benedict stepped off and left the field free of the present, Francis.
During some recurring meetings between them, plus a look back on Franciscus' life in particular, we see a small but rather tame battle between the two widely separated wills. Duon's topics of discussion are mostly about the conflict between tradition and progressiveness. In short: Is change something good or is it compromised? St. Francis believes that the church must keep up with its time, while Benedict believes that everything should be as it always has been.
But that conflict tongue must never grow. Instead, the script throws a lot of lyric to Francis, which he kindly but firmly smacks into the cross. A big deal is made of how popular and beautiful he is, while an angry pleading Benedict appears as a dark man. However, not too long, he soon softens and after much pondering and stumbling, the old rivals sit together in front of the TV and watch football. Like any nice guy. Which is as predictable as goofy crowdfunding.
Sure, this duo is obviously always worth seeing, filling up their roles at their fingertips, but ... well ... it takes a fair amount of Catholic church conviction to find a greater value in The two popes. Which you can imagine that the Brazilian director Fernando Mereilles possesses. And then not only a desire to look behind the scenes, which can be interesting, after all, it is a dwelling of power, but also an opinion that the purely physical splendor of the church is something to beg.
Meirelles leaves Pryce open-mouthed and breathes on the (purely mammonian) wealth, despite the fact that - in reality, he claims to be a simple man who is not impressed by Flirt. But okay, here Francis is our representative on site right in the center of events, and we are expected to meet both the palace and the person with esteem.
Incidentally, "The Events Center" is to take in, this is largely a quiet discussion film, a relative of Ron Howard's Frost / Nixon from 2008 (which was also arranged), but it is a meeting where nothing is really at stake, where neither the path or goal is especially engagingly staged. Which is only surprising when the director is the same who gave us the vibrant city of God and the stylish The constant gardener.
Screenwriter Anthony McCarten received a lot of criticism for his catchy treatment of rock icon Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody (to some extent deserved, but the movie was still lovely), but here he goes a step further and creates a purely idol portrait of the Vatican's current boss .
Sensitive subjects such as abortion and the church's claw-fingered way of controlling their subjects right down the bed straw are completely avoided, and the Catholic pedophilia is just mentioned as the fastest. Considering all the testimonies of systematic rapes of children who in modern times have shaken the foundations of the old institution of power, the film's madness on the subject feels a little provocative.
As an ordered public relations job after a few difficult decades.
The two popes have a limited bio premiere on December 13, and will be coming to Netflix a week later.