Ralph Fiennes leads a stellar cast in Edward Berger’s Conclave, a riveting exploration of Vatican intrigue, power, and faith. A thinking person's drama
What happens when the Pope dies? Conclave (the meeting of the cardinals to elect the Pope) displays the in-depth process, including the internal politics amongst the cardinals, in a visually splendid feature directed by Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front). Ralph Fiennes leads the all-star cast as the dean of the College of Cardinals, Thomas Lawrence, on whose shoulders falls the responsibility of electing the new pope, the most important task of his life.
At the start of Conclave, the pope suddenly dies in the dead of night, and initially, the movie alludes to foul play. Cardinal Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci), the closest to him, assures Lawrence that the pope suffered from poor health but didn’t want others to worry about him. Given Bellini’s liberal leanings, like the pope, Lawrence considers him the next best candidate for the role. However, there are others in contention with major support backing them, like the ambitious Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow), the Nigerian Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati) and the traditional Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto).
Gossip and hearsay can exist even in the most holiest of communities, as seen from the scene where, once the cardinals assemble, they start grouping. Despite the diversity of the group, Cardinal Tedesco cleverly observes, when they all come together, they split by language. The comfort that familiarity provides is an important part of human dynamics. To win votes and influence people, the rules are the same in the religious or political arena. The pope may not hold the position in society he once did, but it is a coveted job nonetheless.
Shockingly similar to Mean Girls, the drama occurs in the cafeteria. When the first vote discloses towards whom the cardinals’ support is leaning, Machiavellian machinations begin. Being the head of the Catholic Church and 1.4 billion catholics across the world is no trivial affair. Bellini, who initially states to Lawrence he doesn’t want the papacy, later changes his tune when Lawrence receives some votes, accuses him of being secretly ambitious. Tucci plays Bellini’s morality and focus on the ‘greater good’ with equal measure as his passive aggressiveness.
Water gets muddied when the mysterious archbishop of Kabul, Cardinal Benitez, shows up. When Benitez, too, acquires a vote, Lawrence suspects he may have voted for himself, but Benitez shares that he gave his vote to Lawrence. Lawrence, surprised, informs Benitez that he is struggling through a crisis of faith and hence, not fit for the job. With his faith in crisis, and the papacy at stake, Fiennes is simply beautiful to watch. As a character in Conclave puts it, Fiennes plays a mortal man with flaws, who serves an ideal but cannot always be ideal.
(Skip this paragraph to avoid a minor spoiler)
The human desire for power is displayed, in arguably the best scene of the movie, by Msamati when the hope of being the pope is taken away from him because of a mistake made many years ago. As Adeyemi finds himself at a loss for words, the pain is sculpted on Msamati’s face. In his eyes, you see the hurt of losing your life’s work. Like you do when your heart breaks, he cries and prays.
As Sister Agnes, Isabella Rossellini plays the only speaking part for a woman in Conclave, which speaks volumes about the community presented on the screen. Along with the packed star cast, who are all phenomenal in the movie, the cinematography and production design are superb as well. Like Stanley Kubrick’s films, the movie can be appreciated without sound, and poetry can be found in its imagery. Unlike most movies with interior scenes, this one is lush with marble and beautiful artwork all around. But the movie is marketed as a thriller, and the music composer is in cahoots with the movie’s marketing department. Conclave is a serious and political drama, not a thriller.
As the decision comes closer to being made, the corruption by power magnifies. This is a thinking person’s movie, and as such, there is much to contemplate here, like its controversial ending. Conclave is made to be viewed multiple times and is a historic time-capsule for future generations of the time we live in, regardless of one’s religious views.
Benitez – ‘You want me to vote for a man you see as ambitious?’
Lawrence – ‘I do not want to see Tedesco as Pope. He would take our church back to..to an earlier era.’
Benitez – ‘I’m sorry but I cannot vote for a man unless I deem him the most worthy to be Pope. And for me, that is not Tremblay. It’s you.’
Lawrence – [yelling] ‘I don’t want your vote!’
Benitez – ‘Nevertheless…you have it.’