The gray cardinal

Why is the protagonist of the New Dad Voillo? Remember the whole season (spoilers!)

The New Dad ended - the second season of the series Paolo Sorrentino about the life of the Vatican. Pius XIII, conservative Lenny Belardo, fell into coma, John Branox, a former punk, doubting himself and the world around him, replaced him. Sorrentino churches managed to maintain balance in large part due to the efforts of the priest Angelo Voillo, the permanent Secretary of State Vatican. At the request of Medusa, the critic Tatyana Shorokhova recalls the whole season and tells why his main hero was not the character of Juda Lowe or John Malkovich, but the inconspicuous fan of Napoli.

Carefully! This text describes in detail the events that occurred in the New Dad. If you have not yet inspected the series and want to save the intrigue, read the review of the first episodes .

In the life of the director Paolo Sorrentino there is an episode that can be called a tragic combination of circumstances, and can also be divine intervention. When the future director was 16 years old, the parents went on vacation. They wanted to take his son, but he decided to stay at home to watch the game of his favorite Napoli team, in which Maradona played then. Football in direct meaning saved his life - his parents died. Since then, Sorrentino calls Maradon his savior, and football - his passion.

Among all the heroes of Papa, only Cardinal Angello (Silvio Orlando), Secretary of State of the Vatican, nourishes the love of football. Like the director, he not only loves Napoli, but “plays God”, pulling the necessary strings. “New Dad” is a story about the greatness of gray cardinals and how a very pragmatic person is trying to keep the Catholic Church on his shoulders.

Two dads

Sorrentino constantly distracts the viewer's attention from Voillo. He shows luxurious decorations, goes to magnificent Venice, collapses at the viewer with a cascade of female nudity, not forgetting about the body of Juda Low, half the season lying in a coma. Lenny Belardo survived a heart attack, changed three hearts (one belonged to the Muslim from Egypt, but also did not take root), but remained so hot that even the nun Pamela, careing for him, shamelessly masturbates nearby.

Vatican Sorrentino is saturated with sex, but this is not the worst. “Well, you are all falling in love,” Voillo laments, trembling his eyebrows. He understands that love is more dangerous than sex: you can blackmail sex, with it you can conduct a subcover struggle. It is impossible to blackmail love. Voillo loves God very much, he generally has the most healthy relations with Him, purely business, no sentiment. He cries only from Hollywood melodramas and from the suffering of friends.

He knows everything about everyone, but is calculated when he adjusts the victory on the Tommaso Viltti Conclave, the confessor of the Vatican. Having ascended the papal throne, Tommaso proclaims himself Francis II and tries to repeat the life of the Assisian Francis, plunging the Vatican into asceticism. New dad is a supporter of change? No, the new dad breaks the centuries -old foundations, depriving the cardinals of his favorite trinkets, trying to keep them in a black body and - oh, horror - launching refugees in the Vatican. He is too radical for the church, everyone understands this, even Lenny. Somewhere in Venice, he moves the little finger, and Pope Francis II falls dead in the catacombs of the treasury.

Voillo has the last trump card, Sir John Brennox (John Malkovich), the author of the grandiose text "Middle Way". Perhaps this is a reference to the “introduction to Christianity” by Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI (and the only pontiff for many years, who voluntarily renounced the throne), who stated that doubt was a natural component of faith. John Brennox Sotkan out of doubt. He is a former punk and a depressed aristocrat with lifted eyes; He lives in the castle and all his life is carrying a heavy load, an unforgivable family sin, the reason for its disappearance from all family photographs. In his youth, John involuntarily caused the death of his twin brother Adam and since then his parents have not recognized him.

Branx loves stars, dreams of getting to know Sharon Stone, Jack Nicholson and Marilin Manson, advises Meghan Markle on the wardrobe (perhaps this is the most unsuccessful moment of the series) and is not very torn to the Vatican. The infinite imperfection of the world and the dehristianization of Europe upset him. But only one look towards the PRA Vatican Sofia Dubua (Cecil de France) arouses a semblance of determination in John, and his parents, frozen in sorrow, finally push him to the decision to become a dad. God for Branox is only a surrogate of the Father, who just as remains him with his pleas. No matter how trite it may sound, having ascended to the throne, he tries to prove his own importance to his parents and heal children's injuries.

To be dad is martyrdom. After Pius XIII, this is a burden. After Francis II - a reason for suspicions. Brannox calls himself John Paul III and inherits a lot of troubles. Cardinals sleep with each other, nuns require emancipation, the government no longer wants to support the church of taxpayers. Throughout Italy, on the radio, they listen to the breath of the XIII Pius lying in the coma, and its fanatical flock is on duty under the windows of the hospital in anticipation of a miracle. Terrorists shoot 10 people in Lourda. Brannox comes to the place of the tragedy and says one single word: "No." His output seems eccentric, but much more eccentric his desire to allow Catholic priests to marry.

Having made healthy love accessible, he hopes to save the Church from the love of unhealthy, by which he understands pedophilia. John is preparing to identify his position on the air-and again something goes wrong. The contents of a beautiful box, without which Brennox cannot fall asleep, reminds of himself. The new dad is a drug addict, whose breakdown protects the church from the next changes: he leaves the interview, without saying anything.

Suddenly Lenny wakes up. Doctors cannot explain why he woke up (or rebelled from the dead), he himself already doubts himself (“Maybe I'm an antichist?”), However, according to Voillo, to show it to the world, it means to get a new phenomenon - Catholic fundamentalism.

The most mundane priest

In the Vatican, a terrorist attack is committed, the invaluable “Pieta” of Michelangelo and the Brannox dog was damaged. John goes into the strongest depression. “He is a porcelain figurine,” Voillo states sadly. “It is impossible to give strength to a fragile person.” The fragility of the new dad is not in his addiction to drugs, but in the fact that another person wrote the “Middle Way” - his brother Adam, who died, not having time to publish it. Brannox does not have an impostor syndrome, as it seems at first, he is an impostor. In the arms of Voillo, two pontiffs at once, doubting their own abilities.

Advisor to Voillo is a certain Bauer (Mark Ivanir, as if coming out of Alexei Balabanov’s films), a short -haired person in a hat, with passion for oysters and beautiful girls. It seems that he has a direct connection with God-he sends him to the old and an infectious emoji telephone. Bauer is the invisible power that stands behind every person making decisions. Voillo's decisions are not always good in the universal sense, but always for the good of the Church.

A religious theme is impossible without pathos speeches, and in the "New Dad" with excess. But there is an incredibly humane monologue, which, surprisingly, again pronounces Angelo Voillo. This happens at the funeral of his friend Girolamo, a disabled person, who was care for by the Cardinal. Who is Jirolamo? “The world that suffers. The world that loves. Grace. Girolamo is good and kindness. He is all that we are not, ”says Voillo, inspiring John Paul III for another vivid performance. In it, he turns to terrorists who hold children hostage at school. Pius XIII still has to show people, after which John Paul III goes to the side, taking with him Sofia Dubois-and his life finally begins to take shape. In the end, he is a good person, albeit an impostor.

Lenny Belardo himself also spectacularly leaves - he floats in the hands of the crowd of believers and dies near the drink in the pose of Christ. Thus, both doubters of the pontiff give way to the most mundane priest of this story. Voillo is a religious person, but in his faith he manages to be secular. He does not consider the Vatican as a church, rather, the Church for him is the Vatican. He does not perceive himself seriously, he is dry, ambitious, and pragmatic, sometimes superstitious and merciless to the opposite - in general, not ideal. But the paradox is that it is Voillo who is able to become an ideal dad because he accepts himself as he is (and continues to root for Napoli).

Paolo Sorrentino did not plan to continue the “young dad”, but in the end he took off Diptych, in which he deftly replaced the main characters (Jude Lowe and John Malkovich - only stars to attract attention), secondary.

Tatyana Shorokhova