Habemus Papam -- We Have a Pope (Italy, 2011)

For some reason, I thought I should watch a pope movie. Anything with a pope. The Pope Must Diet, Foul Play, Brother Sun, Sister Moon. Just so long as I could watch it on Roku and not have to make any special effort. I'm not Catholic and have never practiced any religion.

Found a couple more pope-related movies. The Pink Panther 2 with Steve Martin and We Have a Pope (original title: Habemus Papam.)

We Have a Pope is the only one I could find on streaming video, so I watched that. Nice-looking movie by Nanni Moretti. Made for about ten million dollars in 2011. Europeans seem to get more for their money than Hollywood. Ten million dollars is a fortune in any other context, but it's nothing in Hollywood.

Listed as a comedy-drama. A cardinal is elected pope, but before he can go out on the balcony and be introduced to the world, he has a severe anxiety attack and can't go on. But he is Pope, after all. What can they do? No one can make him do anything.

It wasn't anti-Catholic at all, but there was the absurdity of cardinals treating this guy like he had been sent by God even though they had just elected him themselves and even though it was obvious that they made a terrible mistake. He was elected by a two-thirds majority.

There was a scene where the new pope talks to a psychiatrist. He has to keep his identity a secret. He has to tell her that he has no family, has never been married, and he's fine with that, and that he still works even though he's old enough to retire. Watching the cardinals hanging around the Vatican---they can't leave until the new pope is presented to the world---playing solitaire, sitting alone in their rooms putting together jigsaw puzzles, you remember that these are all elderly virgins.

Moretti himself plays another psychiatrist who was brought to the Vatican to talk to the new pope. Now he can't leave. He sits and plays cards with some cardinals, distracts them by talking about being separated from his wife who has a new boyfriend, and beats them.