'We Have a Pope' is comedic and provocative

Michel Piccoli in a scene from "We Have a Pope" directed by Nanni Moretti. In theaters on April 13, 2012. Credit: IFC Films/
There's a sweetness to Italian director Nanni Moretti's "We Have a Pope" that belies its seemingly unholy premise: that a French cardinal named Melville (the great Michel Piccoli) would, upon his election as pope, immediately suffer an anxiety attack and refuse to take the throne (of Peter). If a pope is infallible, wouldn't he be infallible about not wanting to be pope? That's not quite the way it works, apparently, but Moretti's film does -- not as theology, perhaps, but as a very human take on the papacy and as a showcase for Piccoli, who makes his befuddled pontiff quite the sympathetic figure.
Moretti himself plays an atheistic psychiatrist whose exchanges with the reluctant pope are the movie's cleverest bits, and the most caustic: Would the College of Cardinals and its manager-coach (Jerzy Stuhr) really bring in a nonbeliever to counsel the biggest believer of them all? At the same time, however, it feels as if Moretti is holding back: The scandal he creates on-screen never wanders into any real-life issues or concrete matters of dogma or doctrine, and, ultimately, it would be hard for a PC (practicing Catholic) to get very worked up about much of what happens.
Once Melville escapes -- yes, he escapes, throwing the Vatican into a tizzy -- the movie wanders into familiar "Prince and the Pauper" territory, of cloistered royalty colliding with reality. There are precedents: Tom Conti once played an escaped pontiff in "Saving Grace" (1986) and Anthony Quinn was a reluctant Bishop of Rome in "The Shoes of the Fisherman" (1968). But "We Have a Pope" (aka "Habemus Papam," the Latin spoken when a pope is elected) is more of a tweak of the church than a jab, even if the way Moretti leaves things makes one wonder just how Catholicism would react should someone decide he really couldn't cope with the awesome responsibility of the office.
PLOT A French cardinal freaks out when he's elected to head the Holy See. Unrated (adult content)
CAST Michel Piccoli, Nanni Moretti, Jerzy Stuhr
LENGTH 1:42
PLAYING AT Cinema Arts Centre, Huntington; Malverne Cinema
BOTTOM LINE Not-quite-ascerbic satire set in Upper Catholicism is drily comedic, but only mildly provocative. (In Italian with English subtitles)
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