movies: Habemus Papem (We Have a Pope)

[supercheesegirl]

On Friday night F and I used a LivingSocial deal to go see Habemus Papem ("We Have a Pope") at Cinema 16:9 in Lansdowne. The theater was pretty cool and we'd go back again. The movie was just okay, but it had enormous potential to be excellent. The premise: a Pope has died, and all the cardinals meet in council to vote on the next Pope. None of the cardinals particularly want the job, and after several votes, they elect Cardinal Melville, who, on verge of being announced as Pope and making his first speech from the papal balcony, has a nervous breakdown, necessitating the services of an unbelieving psychiatrist. Because the new Pope hasn't been officially announced, the cardinals can't leave the Vatican and try to entertain themselves. This is a movie that involved cardinals in full cardinal regalia playing volleyball - it should have been awesome. The filmmakers had many opportunities to play up the humor as well as the gravity of the new Pope's situation, but they missed so many of those opportunities. The ending, while inevitable, was played overdramatically and ended up being a disappointment. I was glad to have seen the movie, and more glad for a fun date night out at a cool theater with F, but overall I wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless they're a big fan of Italian film or Catholic stuff.