“I feel as if I’m at some American political convention.”
Conclave, directed by Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front), confronts the viciously political process of electing a new pope, as cardinals jockey amongst themselves for the top job. Ralph Fiennes (The Menu) plays Cardinal Lawrence, the man stewarding the election process, as he discovers secrets that could rock the Catholic Church to its core. Seeing as the movie has become an Oscar frontrunner and its events might play out in real life very soon as Pope Francis continues to weather a health crisis, let’s revisit one of 2024’s cinematic heavyweights.
Even though the movie deals with the inner workings of the Church, Conclave is not a religious movie. Instead, it quickly becomes a political thriller. The cardinals fall into two camps, liberal and conservative, and the story follows the struggle of the liberals to stop a conservative pope from being elected. The scale of the political drama is very engrossing, and there’s a few really good edge-of-your-seat moments sprinkled throughout its runtime.
While the plot builds the tension, Conclave’s production reinforces and enhances the scope of the political struggle. The sets are appropriately lofty, and the ornate costumes place us right within the inner workings of the Church. The cinematography masterfully creates suspense through its use of symmetry while holding the characters back to make them small in the face of their environments, elevating the film from just people talking in rooms to a deft thriller. A good example is a scene where a group of cardinals are scheming in a perfectly symmetric stairwell while the camera is up a flight to make them look small. The symmetric environment and the characters’ sizes make this stairwell feel just like the hallowed walls of the Sistine Chapel, making the scene feel more tense and important. This style works with the production to excellently emphasize the historical importance of what we are witnessing, altogether creating a dizzying sense of scale.
However, after the first 45 minutes or so, the plot becomes extremely repetitive. It looks like the liberals are about to lose, then they discover a scandal from the currently most prominent conservative, crushing his chances of being pope. Rinse and repeat for two hours.
This plot wastes its interesting premise – nothing in Conclave feels unique to its setting. The scandals that bring the cardinals down are the same ones that would bring any politician down. Instead of a papal election, the movie could be focused on any other political scuffle and the only change would be fewer characters wearing robes.
The film tries to give this tepid plot more weight by tying several grandiose themes into the political tension, but none of them are ever fully realized. The film toys with crises of faith but never manages to fully confront them. In the first few minutes, the movie brings up the theme of how power can be tainted with institutional issues just to never touch it again. The cardinals essentially being politicians would be an interesting comparison, but the movie muddles it with what little religiosity it does have; during crucial moments in the film, where the cardinals would need to act as politicians for the comparison to work, they act religiously, critically undermining the metaphor. The only theme that is pervasive throughout the whole movie is that of ambition. But, for a movie of this scope, where the characters constantly describe the sheer magnitude of what they are deciding, this biggest theme feels extraordinarily small.
The characters are just like the rest of the movie – good enough. There are a few characters you can kind of like and a few to hate. There’s never any real connection between the audience and the characters, and there’s no one to cheer for to become pope. The performances are decent, however. Ralph Fiennes gives a few magnetic speeches and carries Cardinal Lawrence with a melancholy that I wish the film addressed more than it did. There are certainly a few moments clearly meant to be used in a “for your consideration” reel for the Oscars. Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada) and Lucian Msamati (Gangs of London) also give great performances as Cardinal Bellini and Cardinal Adayemi, respectively, demonstrating the emotional turmoil of the election process. But, again, the film does not give enough time for these performances to breathe so that the audience can get attached to the characters.
For a film that deals with such a grandiose topic in a politically charged time and is a frontrunner to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, the only word I can think of to describe Conclave is disappointing. Its technical prowess and performances should not be understated, and the film is certainly entertaining (it’s no wonder the movie became an Oscar frontrunner). But Conclave is a good movie that could have been a great movie, crumbling under its immense scale. It’s a perfectly enjoyable film to throw on when nothing else is on, but it sees itself as much more important than it is.
