[…] These men bore no resemblance to the real-life men they were supposed to represent. That’s fundamentally why The Two Popes is a dangerous and misguided movie.
At the level of story, it is the same old narrative we have been fed by the media from the moment of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s election as pope in 2005. He is a “dour traditionalist,” “God’s Rottweiler,” The Man Who Couldn’t Smile or Dance. In the other corner is Francis, the first non-European pope in 1,200 years, a one-time Tango club bouncer, passionate soccer fan, the “man with the common touch,” and in due course the “Christlike Pope”—in contradistinction to all his predecessors. This movie leaves idle no media cliché: Jorge Cardinal Mario Bergoglio’s battered black brogues on the airport security scanner, Francis eschewing the papal red shoes, Bergoglio watching football in a bar and eating takeaway pizza. There’s talk of the evils of walls and the virtues of bridges.
And there is worse. The movie uses clips from real news footage. One vox pop clip shows a man reacting to Benedict’s election: “I know Ratzinger. The Nazi should not have been elected.” It is a spaghetti western without guns or horses. Ratzinger/Benedict is all but fitted up with the droopy moustache: Aloof and introverted, he eats alone, prefers Latin to other languages, has never heard of ABBA, and cannot dance the Tango. Most damningly, he resists Bergoglio’s attempt to hug him. The script leaves viewers in no doubt as to which pope they are expected to side with. …
Anthony Hopkins’s portrayal of an obsessed, bad-tempered Benedict is counterposed to Jonathan Pryce’s affable, benevolent, and placid Bergoglio. If you know anything of the truth of these two men, it is almost laughable. …
