THE TWO POPES ★★★ (Cert 12A, 126mins)
ACCORDING to the job description, popes are infallible. So when Benedict
XVI announced he was no longer physically capable of leading the Catholic Church, it sent shockwaves across the world.
In the Netflix-produced The Two Popes, screenwriter Anthony McCarten (adapting his own stage play) uses the pontiff’s 2013 retirement as a springboard for a genial, actorly drama.
McCarten imagines a handful of meetings between Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins) and the Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) who would go on to succeed him as Pope Francis.
Bergoglio, who represents the liberal wing of the Church, travels to the Pope’s summer palace outside Rome, to submit a request to the pontiff for his own retirement.
His Holiness rejects it. Since Bergoglio disagrees with the Pope’s conservative politics, the pontiff feels that his request to retire would imply criticism. But as the two men discuss faith, music and football, we wonder whether the Pope has another motive.
Hopkins gives Benedict XVI a spiky facade and hidden depths. Pryce’s Bergoglio is more charismatic. But he is also secretly wracked with guilt. Flashbacks show he kept quiet during Argentina’s brutal junta of the 1970s, when fellow priests were arrested.
Benedict XVI’s childhood in Nazi Austria is mentioned but not dramatised. Nor does McCarten seem interested in the then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s secret dealings with the child abuse scandal in John Paul II’s reign. Many victims may feel like they’ve been silenced once again.