‘Conclave’ Review: Pope Idol
Holy smoke! We are off to the Vatican, a very popular pilgrimage for filmmakers. You’ve got fancy dress and fancier cathedrals. Corridors of power abound. Glaringly obvious villains, complicated heroes. There is, and I don’t say this glibly, a lot to explore and criticise and admire about the Catholic church. But this time, director Edward Berger has used all that intrigue to craft a thriller about the complex, agonising process of choosing a new pope. To borrow a phrase from a more modern – though just as powerful – religion: it is time to check into the tortured papal department.
Conclave film opens with the death of the pope: he was popular and liberal. And he had picked Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (played by Ralph Fiennes) to oversee the papal conclave, in which the new pope is chosen by anonymous ballot by cardinals (a candidate needs two thirds of the votes to win). There are a few options: Bellini (Stanley Tucci) who is open to reform around gay marriage (woohoo!) and women’s role in the church (sure they’ll be delighted!); the ambitious Tremblay (John Lithgow); the socially conservative Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati); and Tedesco (Sergio Castellito) who is racist and loud.
Shortly before the cardinals are sequestered in the Vatican, Lawrence is told some scandalous gossip: during the pope’s final meeting, he told Tremblay that he was not fit to continue as a cardinal. That reveal, and a few other bombshells, make their way through the conclave at a pleasing clip, alternately gasp-inducing (there’s a scene involving a photocopier which will put you in the mind of Mean Girls) and weirdly restrained (the final, bonkers reveal comes with minutes to go).
Fiennes has a hard role as a kind of caretaker who privately finds himself enveloped in doubt (the film, not too subtly, changes his name from Jacopo to Thomas). He pads about the screen, in staging reminiscent of Renaissance paintings, breathing heavily and delivering hard stares. How does he parse truth from rumour? How does he shore up support for his choice for the pope? And he must question his own desires: does he himself want to be the next leader? The British actor performs these uncertainties for over two hours, and it is never less than compelling.
The film is adapted from the Robert Harris novel of the same name, which may give you some idea of the intellectual terrain on which we find ourselves: well-made, pulpy as hell, momentarily cerebral. Anything too academic has been turned into an understandable shorthand, which serves the film well. The old guard are sad about the disintegration of Tridentine mass, the more liberal cardinals are concerned about the stripping-back of the previous pope’s reforms. The supporting cast’s performance bring to life the nuances within that set up: Isabella Rossellini is superb as Sister Agnes, Tucci has a natural banter with Fiennes, and Castellito brings a much-needed temper to proceedings.
Berger (whose most recent film, All Quiet on the Western Front, won a slew of Oscars) surrounds these men in mundanity: the brightly-lit cafeteria at the Casa Santa Marta (a dull-looking apartment block built in the Nineties where the cardinals are staying), the cigarette butts that litter the conspiratorial porticos, the sad hotel room coffee machine (why are those things so noisy?). One of the cardinals cannot be separated from his vape, which is a brand-aligned deep red. There is little magic in the machinations. Even the smoke, which informs the public whether or not a new pope has been elected, is coloured by canisters. All this seems to say: these dudes might be picking God’s representative on Earth, but it ain’t all Champagne and caviar (though the ravioli looks pretty good). And lo, they have indeed made mistakes, indulging in vices that even a lapsed Catholic like myself could tell you contravene house rules.
Conclave has a few surprises. None of the cardinals’ secrets are exactly what you might imagine them to be. The film has to make reference to the church’s history of child abuse so as not to be accused of brushing anything under the carpet, but it’s in passing and some details of the crimes feel carefully chosen so as not to bring that sordid history into the equation (not a bad choice, but a choice nonetheless). The second is the ending, which is such an out-of-nowhere twist that I was not sure what to make of it 24 hours later.
I am still not, but that only adds to Conclave’s lingering charm: a thriller-cum-high school drama, with just enough substance to keep you in contemplation after that white smoke billows up into the sky.
‘Conclave’ is out in cinemas now
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