Promise Me Tomorrow

The charming "Pope Dreams" was one my favorites at last week's Atlanta Film Festival. I set aside my cynicism and my adult aversion to being emotionally manipulated by a plot-by-the-numbers script when I realized that this was going to be a straight-up coming-of-age movie. Besides, it's the wonderful acting that makes "Pope Dreams" stand out in a film festival setting, which tends to show more ironically wised-up characters. Although, with a title like "Pope Dreams", I figured this film would be ironic. Instead, this was a really generous-spirited adolescent movie about social class and love and family and music.

I did find the title a bit off the beam,however, since,in this cut, anyway, the Papal pilgrimage subplot is quite incidental to the story. One of the film's best bits of dialog is a musically misunderstood reference to "Early Sabbath". I thought - "that's makes a great title!" - to myself as I was watching....