Conclave

Oscar season approaches. Several reviews of Conclave have puffed it as worthy of Best Picture, plus Stanley Tucci and Ralph Fiennes as candidates for best actor nods. No such predictions here. Still I rate this as the best film of my year; until Conclave, I’d never watched the same movie two consecutive days.

The deceivingly simple plot: The pope dies; Cardinals flock to the Vatican to elect his successor. Ten minutes in, though, the twists and turns of a barely disguised clergy heavyweight match rivet attention for the duration. Here exaggerated, fictionalized, but imaginative hyperbole draws spiritual themes so compellingly that theatres shill the movie as a “mystery thriller.” That’s cheap.

More accurately, Edward Berger’s 2024 movie, based on Robert Harris’s 2016 eponymous novel, Conclave, stands out as a gripping drama of spiritual conflict, doubt, jealousy, ambition, lying, forgiveness—and Hope. Such themes invite serious theological and personal reflection.

Ralph Fiennes plays Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, the dean of the College of Cardinals, and develops the brooding, unflappable character through every conversation and physical movement. Opening frames show Lawrence walking through a dark tunnel to where the pope’s body lies; he looks as if he carries the world on his bent shoulders.

Three weeks later the cardinals enter the pillared Vatican precincts. Here Lawrence cooly, cordially chats with each. Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellito) marches in alone, dead last, wearing a devilishly scarlet cape. His ostentation spotlights his aspiration as a papabile, hoping to turn Rome’s clock back to pre-Vatican II rituals and power. Knowing Tedesco’s ambitions, Lawrence and two colleagues challenge Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) to accept the nomination. Ecclesiastical bloodsport begins.

Moments before the conclave starts, an exhausted priest in dark clothes arrives in Lawrence’s office. The late pope had secretly consecrated Cardinal Vicente Benitez (Carlos Diehz) of Kabul. Earlier he’d served in the Congo during its endless civil violence. Kabul, the Congo—nowhere any cardinal coveting advancement prays to serve. To open the conclave, Lawrence asks Benitez to pray. Ad libbing a prayer for earth’s least and oppressed, he stuns the eminences accustomed to formulaic prayers.

As voting proceeds, Director Bergman carries the tension of shifting votes in brief, sharp close-ups, painting the lead candidates’ faces with envy, fear and disdain. As a terrorist’s bomb blasts the conclave chapel’s windows; the Spirit’s fresh, dangerous wind and light cascade into the corrupt atmosphere.

The cardinals move to an auditorium. A raucous argument climaxes with Tedesco’s shout, “We’re fighting a war.” Far back, Benitez agonizes, “YOU don’t know war. … Evil runs through every human heart.” Benitez—related to the Latin “blessed”—is a Christ figure speaking dangerous truth. The theme of first being last and last first drives the movie’s last climatic scenes.

Watch this serious, often disturbing film. Wrestle with friends over spiritual challenges as Truth drills through thick layers of wicked deceit and ambition. Those sins penetrate not only this fictional film. We cry for repentance from such evil still sullying our hearts, while in Christ alone, redeeming Hope grows daily afresh.