Despite moments that strain awfully hard to remind us that the church and its new leader are in crisis, it's basically habemus comoedia. We have a comedy.
- Bob Mondello, NPR, April 06, 2012
Melville (an excellent Michel Piccoli), not being the front-runner, is caught so completely unawares that he goes into meltdown mode while the world waits.
- Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor, April 06, 2012
The film is perhaps 15 minutes too long, and there are a few too-convenient scenes, but overall "We Have a Pope'' should prove a crowd-pleaser.
- V.A. Musetto, New York Post, April 06, 2012
Mr. 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.
- Manohla Dargis, New York Times, April 05, 2012
A gentle fable whose humanist heart beats in Michel Piccoli's nuanced performance.
- Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times, April 05, 2012
It's a half-sweet, half-rueful existential drama in which the satire comes secondary.
- Mark Jenkins, NPR, April 05, 2012
What appears to be an amusing tale of a leader who has lost his way is also an unapologetic challenge to faith itself.
- Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News, April 05, 2012
- , Philadelphia Inquirer, May 04, 2012
We Have a Pope takes its shots at the institution of the Catholic Church, but this is by no means a scathing satire. It's more of a character study, insightful and nuanced, about a man grappling with a profound sense of inadequacy, questioning himself.
- Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer, May 03, 2012
Though skeptical, the film isn't at all mean-spirited.
- Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader, April 27, 2012
"We Have a Pope" is a nuanced, moving and profoundly humane exploration of doubt, faith, weakness and resolve.
- Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, April 27, 2012
"We Have a Pope" has great heart.
- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, April 26, 2012
On the surface, this Italian dramedy about a troubled cardinal reluctant to accept his election to the papacy is a likable, understated farce. Look closer and you'll see that it has serious issues on its mind.
- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 20, 2012
Moretti's latest work looks at the church sympathetically, veristically, comically.
- Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic, April 20, 2012
There's a sweetness to Italian director Nanni Moretti's "We Have a Pope" that belies its seemingly unholy premise...
- John Anderson, Newsday, April 13, 2012
Piccoli gives the film a depth it perhaps doesn't deserve.
- G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, April 13, 2012
Whenever it stays with Piccoli ... it's mysterious and moving, struck by the humility of a man who's not up to playing God.
- Ty Burr, Boston Globe, April 12, 2012
Always the star of his movies, even when he shouldn't be, the atheist Moretti gets caught up in his own papal bull. But Piccoli's blessed empathy prevails.
- Peter Howell, Toronto Star, May 31, 2012
- , Sight and Sound, June 18, 2012
This is rich material that Moretti mines for both superficial absurdity and deep pathos. But he refuses to forge an orthodox happy ending, let alone a tinny satire.
- Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 11, 2012
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