On Demand Weekly

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: WE HAVE A POPE (IFC Films).

WE HAVE A POPE
Pope of No Where Village
By Sidney Falco

WE HAVE A POPE is a film that should be a lot more than what it is: mild entertainment at best – never more and, at times, less. It does have moments of charm and light-hearted touches in the direction, with performances to match, yet the picture never goes beyond the surface. It’s Hollywood-Lite storytelling (and I mean that in the worst way), only in Italian.

The plot: The Pope dies and the Cardinals gather together to pick a new Pope. Cardinal Melville (Michael Piccoli) is chosen against his wishes (never the front runner, according to the Press), and just as he is about to make it official and announce himself to the crowd in St. Peter’s square, he has a breakdown and refuses the job. Uncertain of himself, a Psychiatrist is brought in to find a solution for him, yet the Cardinal does not want to be Pope. Through a series of events, he decides to escape the Vatican and find himself.

With two of Italy’s foremost talents behind the camera, director Nanni Moretti and co-writer Francesco Piccolo, one would hope that they would use humor in the film to probe the psychology of Cardinal Melville (there are not 1, but 2 Psychiatrist characters!). Unfortunately, and this is where the picture really fails, the questions asked in the film by the writers about religion, Cardinal Melville’s role as a leader of a religion, along with the humanity that goes with that, never goes deep enough to get to any sort of genuine truth. There is a missed opportunity to make a profound comment about the duality of man, in conjunction with the role of religion in today’s society. All discussions about faith, man’s relation to that faith and oneself, seems to be handled with safety gloves

The territory which the filmmakers decided to explore in their story is a tricky one – there is very little humor in religion – it’s an (accepted) belief, no matter what your faith is, regardless of fact. So the question I asked myself when it was over was: what is the point? The film never offends or restores faith; it never scratches the bone. It falls in the middle of nothingness, relying on mild comedy to sustain the drama.

It’s not all bad. There is some appeal in a few scenes in the film, most notably, every scene with the Psychiatrist brought into the Vatican to question the Pop, who just so happens to be played by Moretti. His character brings life into the story, at least for a little while, before the narrative takes over to Cardinal Melville’s journey through the streets of Rome