‘Conclave’: Disappointing if Pretty Papal Potboiler
A review of ‘Conclave’; Focus Features, 2024.
The papal conclave is a gathering of the College of Cardinals, the body of all cardinals of the Catholic Church, to choose a pope. The pope, or bishop of Rome, is, for us Catholics, the apostolic successor of Saint Peter and the earthly head of the Church. The most recent conclave took place in 2013, when Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as Pope Francis, succeeding Pope Benedict XVI.
The whole thing follows strict rules to ensure its integrity. It takes place in the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals are sequestered, so they cannot leave or communicate with the outside world until a new pope is chosen. There are four votes per day, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. A two-thirds majority is needed to elect a pope. If the cardinals have not elected one, then black smoke is sent out. When they do, white smoke is.
There are four votes per day, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. A two-thirds majority is needed to elect a pope.
There is always rumour and gossip about who will become the pope. In Italian, cardinals who fit the bill are called (quite charmingly, I think) papabile, that is, ‘pope-able’. But it is seen as poor form to campaign to be pope, even if one thinks one is in with a good shot, as it were. In Conclave, based on the book by Robert Harris, various cardinals break that rule. Following the death of the incumbent, they throw their mitres, birette and zuchetti into the ring. The main candidates ae four: the liberal American Bellini (Stanley Tucci); the socially conservative Nigerian Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati); Tremblay (John Lithgow), a mainstream conservative; and Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a reactionary and traditionalist who wants to reverse parts of the Second Vatican Council. The job of managing the conclave falls to Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes).
Near the start of the story, the College is stunned to learn that the late pope secretly made one Vincent Benitez the Archbishop of Kabul. Kabul being the capital of Afghanistan, Lawrence assumes the secrecy has to do with where Benitez was based. In any case, before the first vote, Lawrence departs from his prepared speech and gives a sermon urging the cardinals to embrace doubt and uncertainty, for ‘if there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.’ This is taken by some as a campaign speech. Things do not go as smoothly as one might like. Lawrence, who has been struggling to pray, and regrets being a ‘manager’, not a ‘shepherd’, soon learns that secrets and potential scandals abound. Like a detective, he must looks into these. But at the same time, he must not derail the progress of the conclave.
The College is stunned to learn that the late pope secretly made one Vincent Benitez the Archbishop of Kabul.
If the sin of certainty, as it were, is a key theme of this film, then it seems to be one of which both Harris and the filmmakers are guilty. They are quite sure which views are good and which are bad, which is a giveaway that this was a story and film made by secular liberal atheists for secular liberal atheists. Bishop Robert Barron put it like this: ‘If you are interested in a film about the Catholic Church that could have been written by the editorial board of the New York Times, this is your movie.’ Well, fine. But the criterion for ‘good’ when we go to the cinema is not, in my view, whether we agree with what we see. Harris and the filmmakers are well within their rights to tell the story how they wish to tell it. My chief problem with the film is that it is not very engaging.
Let me tell you why. A story, in order to grip us, rests on persuading us that it matters. We have to care, or the tension, however carefully built as the story unfolds, does not elicit the emotion that it ought to. When I read Conclave, years ago, it struck me that I really did not care how it all turned out. That is not to say that I do not care who becomes pope in real life; but that Harris, and the filmmakers after him, so take for granted that the audience considers the election of the pope a capital-b, capital-d big deal that they do not bother to explain why we should. That there are bad war films, films about whose characters we simply do not care, show that no writer should assume our interest in her story. The stakes in Conclave just do not seem to be high enough to keep our interest.
When I read Conclave, years ago, it struck me that I really did not care how it all turned out.
This is despite the beauty of the film (it of course helps that the Sistine Chapel, much of Rome and the ecclesiastical garb is beautiful anyway). It is also despite the acting, which is universally excellent. Fiennes’ Lawrence is riddled with doubt, does his best to keep the ship on an even keel, while Stanley Tucci’s Bellini struggles palpably to act humbly and without ambition despite fearing the election of a hardline traditionalist pope. Sergio Castellitto is brilliant as Goffredo Tedesco, the most cunning of the papal candidates; but special praise is due to Isabella Rossellini, who plays the sharp and tactful head nun Sister Agnes, deftly balancing her religious duties with what she knows to be right.
Edward Berger renders the story handsomely, aiming at a blend of drama, conveyed through the claustrophobic setting and the reds, whites and blacks of the papal scenery. With slashing string music, Volker Bertelmann does his best to convince us of the significance of what is taking place. But the fine directing, acting, scene-setting, dressing and all the rest of it just does not compensate for its flaws. Harris and Peter Straughan, who adapted the film, seem to want us to wrestle with perennial tensions— between tradition and innovation, between stasis and change. They want us to wonder whether the Church can, and should, adapt to the modern world. But we do not wonder this, because we do not care. There is no subtext here. This is not a searching philosophical film. It is a potboiler, and, I am afraid to say, not a very good one.
