Law has faith in ‘Young Pope’
Actor plays erratic pontiff in HBO drama
Jude Law as a young, American pope in an HBO series from an Oscar-winning Italian filmmaker? What could possibly go wrong? Everything and nothing, depending on how you look at it.
If, for example, what you’re looking for is a fever dream of Vatican visual splendor, shimmering around a Roman holiday of eccentricities like jewels on a papal crown, then this show is for you. Especially if your biggest complaint is that too many TV series look and feel the same, or seem to be treading over the same tired, uninspired territory — well, that’s one you won’t be lodging here. Even the way this 10-episode series is airing is unusual: twice a week, like the old
Batman —a series The Young Pope (Sunday, 9 ET/PT, then Sundays and Mondays, eeEE out of four) oddly resembles, at least in terms of visual quirkiness.
If, on the other hand, you’re looking for coherence, a sense of the spontaneity of real life, or a set of characters you believe might actually exist in Rome — or anywhere else — well, look elsewhere.
Created and directed by Oscarwinner Paolo Sorrentino ( The
Great Beauty), Pope at least lets you know what you’re in for from the get-go. We’re introduced to Law’s (fictional) Pope Pius XIII, the former Lenny Belardo, as he dreams he’s crawling out from under a mountain of babies in Venice’s St. Marks Square. He puts on his papal flip-flops, heads to the shower (cue first bare-butt shot), puts on the robe hanging from a cross-shaped hook, and then drops it — giving us our second butt shot.
And all this before the opening credits.
Lenny, as you might guess, is not your average pope. Aside from being young, handsome and American, he smokes (continually), guzzles diet soda, and delights in doing and saying things that shock the College of Cardinals. Those things include keeping a kangaroo as a pet, violating the sanctity of the confessional, questioning the existence of God, and installing the nun who raised him, Sister Mary (Diane Keaton), as his closest adviser. Oh, and Lenny might also be insane.
Chosen either by the Holy Spirit or by cardinals who thought he’d be an easy-to-manipulate, easy-to-market moderate, Lenny is anything but. A Roman Catholic Church that has in large part embraced a “God is Love” theology finds itself led by a pope who leans toward Old Testament wrath.
That’s a problem. An even bigger problem is the cardinals didn’t realize they were electing a sociopath, which is strange, as it seems painfully obvious. They thought, at worst, they were getting a rube among the sophisticates. Instead, they got Caligula.
Or so it appears. It’s hard to say exactly who Lenny is, or whom Law is playing, because the character is a blank canvas on which Sorrentino seems to project whatever inspires him from scene to scene.
Like the Vatican itself, Pope is beautiful, lush and carefully, formally composed. It’s also oddly airless and cold, more a series of striking pictures than a living and breathing slice of life, one that leaves you with no way in and little reason to care. Style doesn’t just trump substance here; it’s the only substance The Young Pope has.
And that seems wrong.