Conclave Promises Sinful Entertainment But Trips Over its Own Vestments

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The pope is dead, long live the pope. In the papal election thriller Conclave, the Holy Father has ascended, and a different ascendency now grips the Vatican: which member of the College of Cardinals, hastily assembled in the sealed Sistine Chapel (the word conclave comes from the Latin cum clave, “with a key”), will receive a supermajority vote to become supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church. The traditional, closed-door design of the election invites an inherent layer of mystery and conspiracy, and the staggered voting process – the tallies of each vote are announced in front of the cardinals, giving them a brief recess to reconsider who is worth throwing their weight behind before having another go – provides an attractive structure for drama.

Add an archbishop (Jacek Koman) breathlessly informing the conclave chief that one of the hopeful cardinals was dismissed by the pope just before he passed away, and the arrival of Benitez (Carlos Diehz), a Mexican cardinal on a secret, pope-approved mission in Kabul, and the sealed doors of the conclave become a pressure cooker for the Church’s future.

Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is the dean of the College of Cardinals, and he’s going through it. Well, technically the whole Church is going through it, but prior to the death of the pontiff, Lawrence was struggling: a crisis of faith, vocational doubts, tension with the Holy Father. Fiennes lends Lawrence a shaky, mannered grace – as the conclave becomes a haven for all sorts of naïve, sly, and ambitious men, his clerical approach to managing the election as neutrally as possible becomes a creed of reason triumphing over hysteria. For Conclave’s more entertaining stretches, Lawrence is a sterling makeshift detective navigating the hushed asides and furtive glances in Vatican halls; as a protagonist, he is primed with enough inner conflict for us to gel with his perspective, but not enough to get in the way of an expository thriller.

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There’s no getting around it, Conclave turns increasingly silly. When the sensory, oppressive tradition that hangs over the Church meshes with the unspoken hierarchies and fellowships that have formed among bishops, cardinals, and cloistered nuns, a heightened, eyebrow-arching mood is conjured. With every dismissive reference to the dubious holiness of these Men of God, you can’t help but grin and gasp at the theatrics of it all.

In adapting British historical and political novelist Thomas Harris’ book, director Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) opts for a drab, surgical visual style, which, in theory, complements the completely desanctified process at the center of the film. But although Berger and cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine’s clean, photography-like compositions hit that sweet spot of “deliberate and important” and “lacking any identifiable fingerprints” that feels increasingly necessary for an Oscar-courting thriller, Conclave lacks the invasive and subversive edge that someone like Jonathan Demme, who was a master at translating robust literary thrillers to coy, distressing cinema, would bring to the material.

Conclave can be funny in a way that, because of the officious setting, suggests highbrow, intellectual sensibilities, but it actually plays like a crowd-pleasing royal court drama, featuring expert comedic timing from the po-faced ensemble and capped off with a riotous third act mic-drop from the severe and suspicious Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini). It’s curious that Conclave doesn’t sense the innate trashiness coursing through its conspiratorial plot; in his attempt to polish up a novel that’s a couple steps removed from a Dan Brown book, the director confirms he’s best suited for films that tell you what they’re about.

Much of Conclave is focused on discrediting the presumed frontrunners, or unveiling their attempts to discredit each other, and we’re encouraged early to view all of these glad-handing candidates with a degree of skepticism: Tremblay (John Lithgow), whose vague liberalism masks a fierce ambition; Bellini (Stanley Tucci), a reluctant favorite to continue the late pope’s liberal manifesto; Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), the arch-conservative Italian cardinal who wants to backtrack all the progressive ideals of the deceased pope; and Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), whose homophobic platform doesn’t immediately exclude him from becoming the first African pope.

For most of Conclave, these contenders get set up and then knocked down, with Lawrence investigating the minor outbursts, bureaucratic inconsistencies, and ambitious overreaches that provide satisfying and scenery-chewing downfalls. But Conclave itself missteps in handling these cathartic reveals; all the main pope-hopefuls (popefuls?) are probed and discounted in such a linear, procedural fashion that a good deal of the middle section consists of dutifully going through the motions.

As the outside world starts to infringe on the insular election in the form of unhelpfully vague geopolitical violence, Conclave takes its final form – a hollow liberal lecture from the newcomer Benitez. His speech about the necessity of progress is clearly meant to parallel broader society’s current democratic crisis, without ever acknowledging that “progressive for the Catholic Church” does not meaningfully equate to “progressive for the rest of the world.” (For context, it was only 60 years ago that the Catholic Church decreed that God had, in fact, not cursed all Jews for killing Christ.)

In its final moments, Conclave repeats the mistakes of its characters and shows more ambition than it’s capable of pulling off. A last-minute twist should invite the same radical provocation as Paolo Sorrentino’s The Young Pope or the vast number of queer interpretations of Christian myth and history, but Berger’s inability to invoke the sensuality of Catholic cinema becomes his undoing; the final scene provokes less poignant reflection, more shocked laughter. Making a religious thriller with no trace of holiness is encouraged; failing to meet the spiritual demands of the material is a greater sin.

Director: Edward Berger
Writer: Peter Straughan
Stars: Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini, Sergio Castellitto
Release date: Nov. 29, 2024

Rory Doherty is a screenwriter, playwright and culture writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. You can follow his thoughts about all things stories @roryhasopinions.