Ciao friends 🎬 After walking through the grandeur of St. Peter’s Basilica, climbing the majestic dome, and standing in the embrace of Bernini’s colonnades, it felt natural to sit down and revisit The Two Popes, a film that doesn’t just explore the Vatican’s walls, but what lives within them: faith, doubt, tradition, and transformation.
Starring Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict XVI and Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (the future Pope Francis), this 2019 film is a visual and emotional journey, part fiction, part fact, and wholly captivating. It’s not a documentary, but it offers a deeply human lens into the papacy and the weight of its mantle.
🕊 A Story of Transition and Tension
The film opens in 2005 with the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI. As the years pass, we see Cardinal Bergoglio’s growing frustration with the Church’s resistance to reform. When he seeks to retire, he is unexpectedly called to Rome, where a secret, heartfelt dialogue begins between two very different men.
Through this imagined but emotionally authentic conversation, The Two Popes explores the contrasts between them: tradition vs. reform, solitude vs. openness, theology vs. lived experience. Their conversations, filmed partly in real Vatican-inspired locations, are laced with humor, vulnerability, and surprising warmth.
🎥 A Cinematic Tribute to the Vatican
The cinematography alone is reason enough to watch. Filmed on location in Rome and within stunning recreations of the Sistine Chapel and Vatican gardens, the film evokes the grandeur of the Holy See. As someone who recently visited these sacred spaces, I was transported back instantly. The mosaics. The quiet cloisters. The echo of footsteps in marbled halls. You can almost smell the incense.
A highlight? The film’s careful staging of the Sistine Chapel conclave, detailed, solemn, and beautiful. And those aerial shots of St. Peter’s Square? Pure magic.
👑 The Power of Forgiveness and Change
More than a story of Church leadership, The Two Popes is about change, in institutions, yes, but also in ourselves. It’s about listening, empathy, and the space between silence and speech. The performances are masterful, especially Hopkins’ subtle rigidity and Pryce’s humble persistence. There’s humor, sorrow, and above all, humanity. It’s worth noting that while some scenes are dramatized or imagined, the core spirit of the film aligns with real events: Pope Benedict’s historic resignation in 2013, the first in nearly 600 years, and the election of Pope Francis, who brought a breath of humility and reform.
Final Thoughts
As I sipped a cappuccino later that afternoon on a quiet Roman street, the dialogue of the film lingered in my thoughts. How do we balance tradition with change? Authority with compassion? Faith with doubt?
The Two Popes doesn’t give answers, it offers questions, wrapped in beauty, wit, and grace. And for those of us who’ve walked through St. Peter’s Square, stood before Michelangelo’s Pietà, or climbed the dome toward the sky, it adds another layer to our understanding of what the Vatican represents: not just stone and power, but people and transformation.
xoxo,
Bubbly✨
