Kidnapped review – powerfully enraging real-life drama of Vatican abduction of a Jewish boy

The Guardian

Lean Left

Mixed Factuality

Independent: Scott Trust Limited

Kidnapped review – powerfully enraging real-life drama of Vatican abduction of a Jewish boy

The story of Edgardo Mortara, removed from his family by the Catholic church in 1850s Bologna, is told with elegant restraint by veteran director Marco BellocchioPope Pius IX (Paolo Pierobon, excellent) has a smile that could freeze a chalice of communion wine at 20 paces. With a peevish curled lip and eyes as hard and sharp as the point of a knife blade, he’s a power-crazed pontiff who, according to this taut, factually based period drama by Ma…