'We Have a Pope' is comedic and provocative

There's a sweetness to Italian director Nanni Moretti's "We Have a Pope" that belies its seemingly unholy premise: that a French cardinal named Melville (the great Michel Piccoli) would, upon his election as pope, immediately suffer an anxiety attack and refuse to take the throne (of Peter). If a pope is infallible, wouldn't he be infallible about not wanting to be pope? That's not quite the way it works, apparently, but Moretti's film does -- not as theology, perhaps, but as a very human take on the papacy and as a showcase for Piccoli, who makes his befuddled pontiff quite the sympathetic figure.

Once Melville escapes -- yes, he escapes, throwing the Vatican into a tizzy -- the movie wanders into familiar "Prince and the Pauper" territory, of cloistered royalty colliding with reality. There are precedents: Tom Conti once played an escaped pontiff in "Saving Grace" (1986) and Anthony Quinn was a reluctant Bishop of Rome in "The Shoes of the Fisherman" (1968). But "We Have a Pope" (aka "Habemus Papam," the Latin spoken when a pope is elected) is more of a tweak of the church than a jab, even if the way Moretti leaves things makes one wonder just how Catholicism would react should someone decide he really couldn't cope with the awesome responsibility of the office.

SEE PHOTOSOur critic's top movies of all time countdown