The Two Popes: mutual provocations

The Two Popes is a movie based on a play by Anthony McCarten, who wrote the script, and spends much of his 125 minutes in dialogues between two popes, a phenomenon that has not happened since 1414.

Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce play Benedict XVI and Francis I, shortly after the election of the former, and when then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio went to Rome to request his resignation without knowing that the pope had already summoned his presence.

The encounter between two very different men is an instant of mutual provocation, where Bento openly questions Bergoglio's progressive thinking and complains about the criticisms he makes of his papacy. For the German, the Christian faith depends on the stability that the Argentine sees as leniency with historical crimes.

Although he makes excerptions on Ratzinger's election as a replacement for John Paul II, and also on Bergoglio's past and mundane life (with the beautiful cinematography of Uruguayan Cesar Charlone), these are shallow and serve only to contextualize the dialogue between the two saints priests.

"I don't agree with anything you say," — says an authoritarian and accusing Benedict XVI to a respectful but firm Bergoglio. There is a tendency in Fernando Meirelles' direction to portray the Argentine cardinal as a redemptive figure, able to face his fallibility with humility and whose accession to the papal throne may usher in an era of significant changes.

However, what could appear as a manipulation of the script is entirely supplanted by the magnificent performance of the two protagonists. Pryce is friendly and fun, like the image that Pope Francis I gives us. But this performance is a gift given by Hopkins' economic performance.

For this reason, it is credible to change the perspective of Bento's plans, almost portrayed as a villain, as a brilliant theorist and attached to his ghosts of the past. When the real popes appear on the screen, Pryce looks like Francis, but Ratzinger looks like a caricature of Hopkins.

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