We Have a Pope

The conclave elects a new pope and the name that comes out is Cardinal Melville. At the moment he has to step onto the balcony and face the crowd he has a panic attack and refuses. The Vatican locks up: there is a pope and there is nobody. A psychoanalyst is brought in, gets stranded inside the Vatican and passes the time organising a volleyball tournament among the cardinals. Nanni Moretti directed and plays Brezzi, the analyst. Michel Piccoli plays Melville. It is an Italian and French co-production with an 8 million euro budget. It was shot between February and May 2010 at Cinecitta in Rome, where replicas of the Sistine Chapel and the Sala Regia were built. Palazzo Farnese and the Villa Medici were also used. It opened in Italy with 1.3 million euros, second at the box office behind Rio. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 66 percent and Metacritic at 64. In France, Cahiers du cinema named it the best film of 2011. Deborah Young in the Hollywood Reporter found the finale like an artist paralysed by his own perfectionism. The reaction from the Vatican split. The correspondent Salvatore Izzo called for a boycott, while Vatican Radio noted the film contains no irony and no caricature of the papacy. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet comedies about the inside of institutions, and Michel Piccoli. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a resolution. The film asks its question and ends without answering it.