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63Whenever it stays with Piccoli, though, it's mysterious and moving, struck by the humility of a man who's not up to playing God.
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60As lukewarm as We Have a Pope may be as a piece of filmmaking, Moretti doesn't tread particularly gently into sacred territory. The picture could be more irreverent, but at least it dares to suggest that popes are people too.
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50Until the potent concluding scene, the humor and shallow profundities of We Have a Pope pivot on the cuteness of geriatrics, especially when they're spiking a volleyball in slo-mo.
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67The film wastes itself on silliness and scattered threads before very long, truly squandering a brilliant promise.
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88By turns sweet, sad, funny and poignant, We Have a Pope is the story of a man who doesn't want to be God's representative on Earth.
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88It's more of a character study, insightful and nuanced, about a man grappling with a profound sense of inadequacy, questioning himself. In many ways, We Have a Pope recalls last year's Oscar winner, "The King's Speech": Someone who doesn't feel up to the job fate has handed him, and then struggling to come to terms with it.
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Apr 26, 201270Beneath the surface lies a carefully considered argument about the irrelevance of organized religion in modern society. Though skeptical, the film isn't at all mean-spirited: Moretti takes such pleasure in living that the impulse to consecrate it seems absurd.
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88There are elements of comedy here, and some very low-key slapstick, but the film is respectful to the Catholic Church and the papacy and takes no cheap shots.
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Apr 13, 201250Piccoli gives the film a depth it perhaps doesn't deserve.
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75The wonderful Polish actor Jerzy Stuhr plays the harried papal spokesman. It's a marvelous movie until the halfway point, when it unaccountably devolves into silliness.
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63Overall We Have a Pope should prove a crowd-pleaser. Sacred music by the great Estonian composer is a plus.
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85We Have a Pope is not the filmmaker's next assault on a Roman patriarch. It's a half-sweet, half-rueful existential drama in which the satire comes secondary.
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90Mr. Moretti finds broad comedy in the antics of some clerics, who can seem as sweet as children, but in Melville there is pathos and there is tragedy, and not his alone.
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Apr 5, 201250Too gingerly to be persuasive.
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80Meticulous staging and Piccoli's world-weary presence balance any silliness, making the issues here feel relevant and real. The method is not pointed political satire but gentle enlightenment.
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50It's a shame that a movie about the pope as a man shows such scant fascination with the actual papacy - or with humanity, for that matter.
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40Nanni Moretti's new film is occasionally amusing, but is also a frustrating and directionless experience.
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60Piccoli in a role that relies on looks, gestures and very few words, does not hit an off note, making him into a silent, everyman figure.
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40The satire becomes more scattershot and strangely cuddlesome (didja know sequestered holy men enjoy socializing and playing sports, just like us?), while the usually great Piccoli-saddled with a ridiculously contrived failed-actor backstory-comes off like an unholy mix of Gérard Depardieu and Robin Williams at their sad-puppiest. That's some cinematic blasphemy, Moretti.
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Apr 1, 201250The results veer between occasional smiles and outright pretension, with only Piccoli's mastery transcending the material.
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Apr 1, 201270Nanni Moretti's tender, funny and timely Vatican romp entertains, but lacks the director's customary bite.
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63Nanni Moretti's latest is a mixed bag that too often settles for easy, superficial laughs.
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May 31, 201263If only Moretti had had the faith in his story and its gentle, organic comedy, and done away with the forced silliness.
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75This is rich material that Moretti mines for both superficial absurdity and deep pathos.
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70What really grips the new movie, for all its amused glances at Swiss Guards and ceremonial pomp, is the prospect of a single soul in crisis. [9 April 2012, p.85]