Conclave a Powerful Look at What Goes on Behind Closed Doors

 

 

 

 

Conclave  (2024)

Directed by Edward Berger

Focus Features, 120 minutes, PG

★★★★★

 

Perhaps the best reason to see Conclave is that the Catholic Church doesn’t want you to do so. A conclave is held when a pope dies and is responsible for choosing a new one. The College of Cardinals is sequestered in Rome and stay in the Vatican until a new one is chosen. After each day’s deliberations and votes, a plume of black smoke denotes that no pope has been chosen. White smoke means a new pontiff is in place.

 

What could possibly be controversial about any of this? Quite a lot actually. The film directed by Edward Berger is based on a novel, but is less fictional than you might imagine. It’s no secret that the College of Cardinals is a political as the U.S. Congress. We see concerned cardinals gathering around the papal deathbed and when the pope finally expires, gamesmanship rears its head. The job of leading the conclave falls to the Dean, Thomas Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), who might be the only man in the Vatican concerned with conducting a moral process.

 

The leading candidates couldn’t be more different. Aldo Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) is a liberal reformer like the deceased pope, but Goffredo Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) insists the new pope must be an Italian who will undo Vatican II and take the church on a rightward reactionary path. Nigerian Joshua Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati) insists it’s time for an African pope and downplays his homophobia and conservative leanings. Joseph Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow) is the fox in the garden who hopes to emerge as the compromise candidate, though there’s an allegation that the pope tried to dismiss him. Perhaps Lawrence himself is a candidate, though he insists he’s an administrator not a spiritual leader. Day two of the conclave is interrupted by whether to seat Archbishop Vincent Benitez (Carlos Diehz), a Mexican national currently serving in Kabul. Benitez champions the poor, has ministered in war zones, and was asked by the pope to help choose his successor.

 

As the conclave unfolds, lots of dirty secrets reveal themselves–so many that Lawrence becomes a serious candidate. He is reluctant to toss his miter into the ring and is also  tainted as it is he who cracked the whip that felled several would-be popes. Was he secretly plotting? The conclave becomes a cat-and-mouse thriller the spotlights puffed up pronouncements and deflating counters. When a terrorist attack leads Bellini to insist a strong pope–read himself–is needed because the church is at war with secularism and sin, Benitez humbly asks, “What do any of you know of war?”

 

Another hard question emerges: Who is actually in charge? A film about Cardinals is, by nature, androcentric. Ahh, but what about the sisters (nuns) who do the housekeeping, prepare the meals, and have their own grudges and history with some of the cardinals?  Isabella Rosellini is Sister Agnes. Watch her carefully. In a conclave reduced to puppet play, who’s to say she can’t pull some strings?

 

Conclave is part thriller, part drama, part morality play, and part Crying Game. The cinematography of Stéphane Fontaine is impressive. He takes some liberties at times but does a credible job of filming a faux Sistine Chapel. Berger and Fontaine had to recreate the very look and feel of the Vatican; needless to say, they had no access to the real thing. The acting is uniformly strong, though one might say that making Tucci Italian American instead of a native Italian might have been a misstep. I can certainly see Fiennes garnering Oscar consideration, though I suspect the film won’t go very far for fear of offending Catholics.

 

As a personal note, I think the Tedescos of the world are wrong. The Catholic Church is riddled with problems. Note that several of the cardinals feared the Papal Curia, the Vatican’s administrative wing. It was so corrupt that Pope Francis replaced it 2022.  The treasury has also came under scrutiny, not to mention the church’s pedophilia scandals and abuses of unwed mothers and indigenous peoples. Conclave made me think that when Francis passes on, the next papal selection should be televised. To put a religious spin on it, there’s a reason the Gospel of John proclaims, “... everyone who does wicked things hates the light.”

 

Rob Weir