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This 1934 rom com from Woody Van Dyke sure as hell woulda been better had it been made in 1933, '32, '31, '30 or, in other words, before the code came crashing down and consigned overtly sexual NYC blondes to the shadows and elevated brunette virgins from Connecticut. You can almost hear the fizz of Hackett and Goodrich's dialogue fizzle out as soon as we move from Gotham to the Nutmeg State and the humor has to depend on chicken feeding and cow milking schtick. And because she is so de-sexualized the relationship between Maureen O'Sullivan and Robert Montgomery is a bore. One longs for the re-appearance of Muriel Evans and/or Louise Henry and some racy repartee. But that would have meant that Will Hays had never existed. A pleasant thought. C plus.

Yet another case of a well meaning film from a good novel that loses about half its impact in the transition from book to screen. The main culprit is Biyi Bandele who proves once again that combining in one person the radically different functions of writer and director should really be left up to the experts (i.e. Sturges, Gerwig, Spike Lee, etc.). Because, as shown here, the results, especially on the screenwriting end, can be dire, so that you end up with key characters like Ugwu and Anulika being under developed so that you do not really exult when one of them survives or feel devastated when the other does not. Also, Bandele's dialogue, especially in the first half, gets awfully expositional and soapy. Further frusatrating this non Nigerian viewer who somehow forgot to bone up on that country's recent history is an inadaquate explanation of the origins of the Biafran civil war so that I had no idea who was fighting who, much less why. And the BBC newsreels Bandele awkwardly inserts into the film at more or less regular intervals are not of much help.

Acting's good, though (this could be Thandie Newton's best performance), the Nigerian location shooting is interesting to watch and I like the strong woman/weak man theme running throughout. So, let's give it a generous C plus.

This is Oscar bait that is fun to watch which, as we all know, is the best kind. And director Edward Berger and scenarist Peter Straughan do a great job of reading the room. Namely, "We've got a best seller here and we're not gonna muck it up by getting too heavy." Consequently, the tone, through the first three fourths, at least, is Cardinals Behaving Badly (except for messers Lawrence and Benitez) and getting busted. And boy is it enjoyable to watch great actors like John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, Sergio Castellito and an actor I did not previously know named Lucian Msamati scheme and dissemble and be vile racists and homophobes and then have to face the music.

In addition, the cinematography by Stephane Fontaine, as befits a film that has its main location in the Sistine Chapel, is somberly, coldly beautiful. And Ralph Fiennes' performance as the moral conscience of the film is wonderful; serious without being ponderous and with just enough wry humor to keep it from being overly earnest. So, although the tone gets a bit too "Can't We All Be Inclusive?" and messagey in the last half hour and the taut, banjo score is a bit too on the nose, I mostly had a good time at the Vatican. B plus.