We Have a Pope

LITTLE ROCK — Tender and poignant, Nanni Moretti’s We Have a Pope is a mild comedy of manners about a crucial crisis of conscience. The man at the center of the drama is not just a man, but Cardinal Melville (French actor Michel Piccoli), who has just been named supreme pontiff by the papal conclave convened in the wake of the death of an unidentified pope. (Moretti uses archival footage from the funeral of John Paul II, but for our purposes we can probably assume that the story takes place in a completely fictional universe.)

The problem is, Melville isn’t sure he’s up to being pope. Like any sane person, he searched his heart and found himself inadequate to the task.

He was, after all, a compromise. The conclave went through many ballots before he emerged as a contender. He wasn’t among the favorites whose names were bandied about in the press. He was happy being a cardinal, he doesn’t trust himself not to make some terrible mistake. But he was chosen - by the conclave, and thus by God. He must make the sacrifice, he must be pope.

But, at the last moment, he finds he can’t go out on the balcony and offer the thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square a blessing. He has what the secular-minded might recognize as a nervous breakdown - he retreats to his apartment in the Vatican before he can be presented to the world. He leaves a billion Catholics in limbo - there is a pope, but he’s not there.

This leads to speculation, and to frenzied maneuvering on the part of the Vatican spokesman (Jerzy Stuhr). They tell the public the new pope is meditating and praying, that he will present himself when he is ready. And surreptitiously, they call in a psychoanalyst (Moretti) to try to help Melville assume his role.

The movie is a blend of broad, almost slapstick comedy and subtle, humane drama, and though Moretti is widely known for his politics - he’s a leftist, a vocal opponent of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi - heseems to eschew any overt statement in this film. He portrays the cardinals as human beings with failings and frailties, but not as hypocrites and charlatans. And Melville - almost certainly named for the French director Jean-Pierre Melville (who took it in homage to Herman Melville) - is a kind of heroic neurotic, a saintly presence who senses he’s acting his own life.

At one point Melville bolts from his keepers, and lives a bit among the people of Rome, but he’s not a shirker or a deserter - he’s just too aware of his own humanity to assume the authority grantedhim. He’s honorable, if not quite holy.

With We Have a Pope (the English title is a little jarring, the origin Latin title Habemus Papam seems more suitably graceful), Moretti has made a graceful and generous comedy that’s probably more accessible to a general audience than I’ve made it sound.

While Moretti is as secular as the character he plays in the film, he gives us a papal portrait that’s nuanced and counterintuitive; we’re used to the humanity of popes evinced as Borgian lust and avarice, not as self-doubt and humility.

We Have a Pope 89

Cast:

Michel Piccoli, Nanni Moretti, Jerzy Stuhr, Margherita Buy

Director:

Nanni Moretti

Rating:

Not rated

Running time:

102 minutes In Italian and Latin with English subtitles