Review: "The Two Popes"

Before Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict XVI, resigned his position in 2013 no Catholic pontiff had voluntarily stepped down prior to death going back to the 1200s. The fact that his successor, Pope Francis, represented a sharp turn from Benedict’s adherence to strict, conservative interpretation of scripture underscores what a watershed moment their passing of the baton was.

“The Two Popes” is an often-mesmerizing, splendidly acted look at the relationship between the two men. It is a semi-fictitious account of their secret meeting over the course of a few days as two adversaries come to be allies, and perhaps friends.

Anthony Hopkins plays Benedict and Jonathan Pryce is Francis, aka Jorge Mario Bergoglio, in what is essentially a two-man, two-hour dialogue about religious faith and earthly tribulations.

Think “My Dinner with Andre,” with cassocks.

It’s more Bergoglio’s story than Benedict’s, as the story follows him and Benedict is only glimpsed through his eyes. Still, both men are revealed as three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood creatures riven with a combination of gloomy doubts and fiery certitude.

The story begins in 2005, when Benedict is chosen over Bergoglio to be the next pope. The first is German, a scholar, and openly campaigns for the position. The latter is Argentinian, a conflicted man of the people, and quietly urges behind the scenes for the church to reform.

Flash to 2011, and the pope summons Cardinal Bergoglio to Rome for mysterious purposes. It turns out the subordinate had already bought a plane ticket to see his superior in order to ask for permission to retire. But it’s clear the pope is intent on taking measure of the cardinal’s mind and soul.

They share walks, meals and contentious conversations. Benedict, physically decrepit but strong in spirit, repeatedly challenges Bergoglio for failing to uphold church doctrine on things like condemning homosexuality and giving sacrament to divorced parishioners.

In turn, the younger man insists that the masses are turning away from Catholicism because of the church’s failure to live up to its own teachings, such as turning a blind eye to predatory priests who had sexually abused young members of the flock.

We also flash back to earlier periods in Bergoglio’s life, such as when he broke off his marital engagement in order to return to the seminary. (Juan Minujín plays the younger version.)

Later, there is a look at his actions as the head of the Franciscans during the Argentinian military coup of 1976. It was a dark time when citizens and even priests often disappeared into prisons, sometimes never to return. Bergoglio is challenged by his own priests, and has to make some harsh choices.

Back in the present of 2011, Bergoglio is still tortured over whether his actions were the right thing to do. Benedict, finally seeing the veil of certainty drop from the ardent reformer, sees not weakness but the humility needed to be a great leader.

Both men confess to each other, as men and as priests. Despite their lofty places in a religious order they experience crises of their faith. Bergoglio says he feels like “a salesman for a product I don’t endorse.” Benedict is haunted by the silence of God’s voice in his mind since he became pope.

Bergoglio flashes anger at the pope for letting predatory priests move from parish to parish while the victims were abandoned. Benedict both admires and resents the cardinal for the unassuming charisma he has with the people.

“Whenever I try to be myself, people don’t seem to like me very much,” he says with a painful grin.

Director Fernando Meirelles (“City of God”) and screenwriter Anthony McCarten (“The Darkest Hour”) have given us a film that is both intimate and grandiose. We don’t see a lot of serious explorations of faith in popular movies, religious characters tending to be portrayed as doctrineless saints or dastardly zealots using their deity’s teachings for their own purposes.

But “The Two Popes” is just such a film. Though it tends to paint Francis as the good-hearted reformer and Benedict as an old-world pedant, the movie refuses to worship or condemn either man. Both are given their due measure of grace.

Video review: "The Wife"

I hope and believe Glenn Close will win an Academy Award for her superlative performance in “The Wife.” That’s because a) she’s been nominated six times without winning; b) it would be a welcome career-capper for an actress who, at almost 72, probably isn’t going to get many more shots; but mostly c) because she so richly deserves it.

She masterfully plays Joan Castleman, a promising writer who gave up her career to raise a family with her husband, Joe (Jonathan Pryce). As the story opens they are edging into their golden years, seemingly happy and about to welcome their first grandchild. Joe, a respected novelist, receives a phone call tell him he is to be awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.

As they fly off to Sweden for the ceremony, cracks in their tranquil façade appear. There are flashbacks to their young lives decades earlier (played by Annie Starke and Harry Lloyd) when we see things weren’t going so well. Joan wasn’t taken seriously by a patriarchal publishing industry, and Joe’s early drafts floundered. They fought and knew anguish.

Problems that started then will come back to haunt Joan in the modern setting… but also liberate her. Close is so good because it’s the epitome of an inside/outside performance. Joan is putting on a face for the world -- a lie, if you will -- and it’s one she’s become very good at maintaining. At the same time, we sense that she has grown tired of this mask and is ready to cast it off.

It’s a brilliant performance inside another performance.

As much as I admire the other lead actress performances vying for awards -- Melissa McCarthy, Lady Gaga -- Close is head and shoulders above the rest.

Bonus features are rather modest. There is a Q&A session with Close and author Meg Wolitzer, who wrote the book upon which the movie is based. Plus a conversation with all of the leading cast members, and a making-of documentary short, “Keeping Secrets: Glenn Close on The Wife.”

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "The Wife"

All married couples hold secrets -- sometimes between each other, sometimes together. Most are lies of omission: not telling a sister about what happened to the flood insurance money, or sparing your spouse’s feelings about the actual edibleness of their bunt cake.

The Castlemans have their own trove of secrets. But with them it seems their entire marriage is built on layer upon layer of secrets, like an onion that smells sweet but is foul inside.

Outwardly, they are bright, successful people reaping the benefits of a life of good work as they edge into their golden years, with accolades, prospering children and a first grandchild on the way. Joe (Jonathan Pryce) is forever announcing to anyone who cares to listen that his wife, Joan, is the love of his life -- his muse, his inspiration, his bedrock.

The interior of their relationship, though, is shot through with rot.

This is a career watershed for Glenn Close. As Joan, she plays a woman who has chosen to live a life of deception, which has with the passing of time become self-deceit. This is the story of her coming to the conclusion that she can no longer live a lie. It’s one of the finest performances of her storied career.

As the story opens, Joe has just been informed that he is to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. After an early disgrace at Yale -- he was sacked for sleeping with one of his students, which would be Joan -- he’s become a respected novelist with a bookshelf full of works that have been translated into innumerable languages.

The story follows them on their journey to Sweden to receive the award, which should be the apex of their marriage but in fact marks the point of its unraveling. Close and Pryce are so good together, with all the little quirks and understanding of each other’s idiosyncrasies that come from decades spent living together.

They play their roles for the public eye. Joe is the egotistical, philandering, fragile artist who must always be the center of attention. Joan is the long-suffering wife whose job is to support Joe in his and bear his many indiscretions. She was a promising writer herself in her youth, but tucked her ambitions away in the face of a male-dominated publishing world.

Close’s face is often set in a placid state of benevolence, with a little tightness at the corner of the mouth and eyes that lets us know it’s a mask -- one Joan is ready to let fall.

Their son, David (Max Irons), accompanies them on the trip and is witness to the growing storm. A budding writer himself, he resents that his father has never given him any sort of encouragement -- only critiques and dismissive praise.

Christian Slater plays Nathaniel Bone, a sniveling fellow shadowing the Castlemans because he wants to be anointed as Joe’s official biographer. He’s an endless parade of flattery and toadying, and yet it becomes clear the man is not a dolt.

Annie Starke and Harry Lloyd portray Joan and Joe as their younger selves. Joe was already married and had a daughter when they met as professor and student, but chucked it all away to dally with her. After he’s dismissed from teaching, the first draft of his debut novel, “The Walnut,” turns out poorly. Joan, who works as a secretary in a publishing house, offers to help get him noticed… and in other ways.

In a way, “The Wife” is a whodunit as well as a portrait of marriage. It soon becomes clear that their relationship is doomed, and the filmmakers -- director Björn Runge and screenwriter Jane Anderson, who adapted Meg Wolitzer’s novel -- tease us with drips of information about how it all went wrong.

I won’t give away the ending of this wonderful movie, other than to say it concludes with bitterness and regret but also a fair amount of joy and hope. Sometimes letting go of the past is the only way to open up new possibilities.

Video review: "Hysteria"

"Hysteria" had me until about two-thirds of the way through. This witty, funny movie is a highly fictionalized but not entirely ludicrous account of the invention of the vibrator, circa 1880 London. Yes, that's right, the world's most popular sex toy was created by starchy doctors seeking a way to address upper-crust housewives reporting vague physical and emotional problems.

Up until the 1950s, "hysteria" was the catch-all diagnosis that medical men gave to an umbrella of symptoms displayed by women that they didn't understand: frigidity, depression, etc. Going back to antiquity, the prescribed remedy was vulval massage performed by a medical professional. In other words, women would go into a doctor's office to be manually stimulated by the hand of a doctor until they achieved ... remedy.

Director Tanya Wexler and screenwriters Stephen Dyer and Jonah Lisa Dyer take a tongue-in-cheek approach to the material, concocting a story of an ambitious young doctor, Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy), who took out the first patent on a vibrator.

Apprenticed to a wealthy physician who treats the vexations of London's finest females (Jonathan Pryce), Granville woos his mentor's proper daughter (Felicity Jones) but is intrigued by her sister, the brash, idealistic proto-suffragette Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

At first, the dashing young doctor is a boon to the practice. But he soon finds himself plagued by hand cramps, and has to come up with a mechanical alternative with the help of his friend and rich patron, Edmund St. John-Smythe (Rupert Everett).

It's all played for jokes and winks, to generally successful effect. I should point out that despite the film's R rating, all the "treatment" takes place under modest drapes appropriate to the Victorian era, and beyond the risqué subject matter the movie is unlikely to shock even the most matronly of grandmothers.

The last half-hour or so gets a bit forced, as the filmmakers find ways to nudge Charlotte and Granville together in ways that aren't entirely convincing. Charlotte's over-the-top progressive attitudes also become grating, seemingly stitched on to the story to benefit the sensibilities of the modern audience, rather than any temporal believability of the characters.

Video extras, which are the same for both Blu-ray and DVD editions, are substantial but not terribly expansive.

Director Wexler teams up with Dancy and Pryce for a feature-length commentary track. I like it when actors participate in commentary tracks, but it's a shame Gyllenhaal chose not to contribute. Similarly, the featurette "An Evening with Tanya Wexler, Hugh Dancy and Jonathan Pryce" exasperatingly excludes the female lead.

There are also a handful of deleted scenes, a making-of featurette, and "Passion & Power: The Technology of Orgasm," a 43-minute documentary on the history of power-assisted sexuality.

Movie: 2.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars