Every serious Catholic I've heard said that movie was horrible.
I watched it. I enjoyed the first part, and thought the basic handling of the ceremony surrounding the death of a pope was well done. I also thought the exploration of the human side of the cardinals and their motivations was interesting.
That said, the movie felt rushed, was clearly pushing an agenda (the more liberal characters were portrayed in the most positive light and the least personable characters were more conservative), and the twist at the end had me rolling my eyes both in terms of the believability of the scenario and the specific political statement it makes. A Catholic coworker had similar feelings. She (a politically liberal person) thought the twist was a ridiculous “gotcha” just meant to skewer Catholics.
