Conclave is a papal thriller based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris and it stars a magnificent Ralph Fiennes. If he doesn’t win an Oscar I’ll eat my hat and also yours. Luckily, the film is also well written, smart, taut and visually stunning. You’d think the costume designer (Lisy Christl) wouldn’t find too much to play with, given it’s all vestments and cassocks, but they are gorgeous. The cardinals can be catty and bitchy and deceptive but I will say this for them: they know how to work red – and those little caps.
The cardinals can be catty and bitchy but I will say this for them: they know how to work red
The film is directed by Edward Berger (All Quiet On The Western Front) from a screenplay by Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the 2011 film version) and begins with the death of the sitting Pope. More than 100 cardinals must now gather to choose a new one. Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes), as dean of the college of cardinals, must oversee the votes. The main candidates are: Tremblay (John Lithgow), a Canadian moderate, Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), an Italian reactionary conservative, Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), who is Nigerian and would be good for diversity but is violently anti-gay, and Bellini, an American liberal. He is played by Stanley Tucci, who may or may not prefer to be at home making arancini balls. (Is it just me or is his whole cooking shtick beginning to get in the way of his performances?) There is also a wild card. This is Benitez (Carlos Diehz), a Mexican who had been elevated to an archbishop by the late pope in pectore. That is, in secret. No one had known of his existence until now.
They are all sequestered from the outside world and must remain claustrophobically confined in the Vatican until a new pope is chosen. (The winner must achieve a two-thirds majority at the ballot box.) The first ballot is not decisive so the political shmoozings and manoeuvrings ramp up – there is much whispering (and vaping) on stairwells – while the terrific score, which is by Volker Bertelmann, also murmurs sinisterly. Reluctantly, Lawrence is forced to turn detective. What is Adeyemi hiding? What’s Tremblay up to? Secrets are uncovered while even the ecclesiastical crime of simony (paying for votes) gets a look in. The cardinals cast their votes in a Sistine Chapel that was recreated by set designers in ten weeks, which makes Michelangelo look a bit silly. (That slacker took four years just to finish painting the ceiling.)
This is a tale of power (and corruption) at the top of the church, and even though the cardinals go to the ballot five times, and watching people write names on paper is hardly exciting, it’s so tightly woven it never gets boring. It is also filled with fascinating procedural details and moments of humour – particularly at the expense of a former pope who was very fat – while we also see the hardworking nuns who attend to the domestic side of the Vatican. Sister Agnes is in charge here, as played by Isabella Rossellini, who gives great side-eye.
Visually, it is dazzling. Just the way the cardinals in their rich crimson robes cross a courtyard en masse may make you yelp with pleasure. It is possibly the most painterly adaptation since C4’s The Handmaid’s Tale but while that was Vermeer-ish this is more Titian.
The end perhaps rather lets things down. It’s quite the twist. But it fits too conveniently with what the film has to say about where the heart of the church should be. Fiennes, meanwhile, is in practically every shot with 92 per cent of his acting coming from behind his eyes – don’t quote me on that, it’s a guess – as Lawrence becomes more and more tortured. If you don’t have a hat I’ll personally buy you one. Just to eat it. But I don’t think it will come to that.
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