I took a minute to get to this for a few reasons. I don’t tend to like political thrillers much. And any Hopeful story about voting too close to the election really would’ve made me wanna bite somebody. Mostly, I expected it to be boring. And then the memes. And then the fancams set to pop music. And then a recommendation by somebody who’s tastes I actually trust and. The thing is.
It’s fun. You don’t expect a movie where a bunch of guys are locked away for days voting on popes to be fun but it is. Every line of dialogue is shot through with the kind of bitchery that hides in politeness. The protagonist is the nosiest man alive who desperately doesn’t want to be there. There is a vaping racist priest. Stanley Tucci is there. And also the most beautiful man alive gets elected pope and then reveals the wildest twist you’ve ever seen.
But I wouldn’t go as far as to call it campy. At least not moreso than Catholicism inherently is. When it’s funny it is because it knows it is funny. It knows that it is taking place in an inherently absurd scenario, and so it can heighten the drama, it can be funny in its absurdity and serious, too. And in that delicate space of play, the film spins out a neat little parable about ambition, power, and faith in a way that I found delightful instead of obnoxious and believe me I find most things obnoxious.
Part of the film’s success for me was how deeply human Cardinal Lawrence was. He was tired, exasperated, frustrated occasionally to the point of rage. There is a scene early on where he gets so annoyed at a plastic baggie full of shampoo that he rips it open and flings the contents into the sink. Somewhere we all have been. And that’s when the movie had me. I was ready to follow it anywhere it went.
And it goes some Places! I loved its commitment to showing you that the late pope was a really weird guy. Making a dude a cardinal in secret. Hiding secret documents about bribery in his bed frame. Secret surgeries for his secret cardinal. And everyone grasping to be the next Very Weird guy.
And Lawrence! Is so weird! Insists he doesn’t want to be pope while systemically eliminating all viable candidates. Breaking into the pope’s bedroom and sobbing. Literally doing a mean girls burn book situation, which made me audibly shriek with glee. Calling a man he just met ‘Dear Vincent.’
And yet his weirdness is beat out. A terrorist attack/message from god knocks him to the floor as he votes for himself, and prompts the wannabe fascist candidate who doesn’t seem to realize it’s not 1492 and the Benitez, the beautiful, silent, saintly secret Cardinal from earlier to reveal their Own Thoughts. Benitez wins out, and prompts one of the wildest last minute swerves I have ever seen a movie do.
In the last ten ish minutes of the movie we find out the Benitez’s mysterious health problems were: the fact he found out he was intersex and has a uterus when his appendix burst. The pope tried to pay for him to have it removed but he decided he didn’t want to contradict god. Lawrence sits there with an expression on his face that reads as his his brain has totally blue screened and I was. Delighted.
I saw some discourse on Twitter about whether this was transphobic or not. I can’t even fathom because I’m not sure what they were trying to say there. I like to read it as one little bit of absurdity on top of an absurd process. And also some levity for the whole power fantasy, without which it would, well, piss me off.
Because it is a power fantasy. The idea that you could be so quiet and so faithful and so good and so full of righteous anger that when you finally speak up you could make a speech So Good that you keep a violent asshole from ascending to power is a power fantasy. And it’s one that 90% of the time pisses me off. Because as much as I would like to pretend we live in that world, I don’t believe we do. I had to watch a whole season of the West Wing for a screenwriting class and it pissed me off so badly I swore off politics themed storytelling for a few years.
But Benitez works for me. Maybe because of the insane twist. Maybe because they made sure to cast him as just the prettiest man you could possibly imagine. Maybe because we learn so little about him that there is just a touch of the fairytale to it. To a strange slice of the world Lawrence witnesses and barely understands before, he hopes and I hope for him, finally being able to fuck off to a monastery and not have to deal with any of these assholes anymore.
Anyways. This is a sheer delight. You should watch this. If you were like me and thought ‘A movie where a bunch of guys have secret stairwell meetings for two hours cannot possibly be a good use of my time’: you are wrong. This is, all politics parables aside: a fun little movie. Watching people be bitchy at each other in fancy outfits is why cinema was invented, probably. Indulge a little.
Signing off,
Marlowe
Marlowe Writes 