ILeana Rodriguez

Too gruesome for my taste but good story.

One of Glenn Close’s better performances of all times. Shows how family and community in rural poor America operates to help or destroy each other. The movie has many very domestic violent scenes but it always feels authentic. It is refreshing to see a movie without “token” characters to check the box.

I thought the movie was well made and contained enough real quotes and facts to make it believable. The danger is that the casual viewer with little Catholic culture may drink the kool-aid and think these two characters are the real views of the two popes in the story. The movie carefully picked and choose Pope Francis (Bergolio) quotes to make it absolutely likable as the savior of a "church in decadency". They did not put in the story his real views on "abortion" for instance. Anthony Hopkins is superb at Ratzinger and allow us a nice journey from not liking him much at the beginning to wanting him to be our own family member. The Argentinian accent (if you speak Spanish) is well done and the sense of humor sets the picture apart as something you can watch over and over and laugh again. The movie provides a nice justification to Ratzinger's resignation which shocked the world in the midst of the sexual misconduct scandal. I thought it was clever and respectful but I know some of my catholic more orthodox friends will want no part of it. I do recommend watching this movie at least to be part of the conversations.