Conclave (2024)

User Review

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  Barneyonmovies

  8 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: A film about choosing a new pope may not sound interesting, but ‘Conclave,’ mostly serves to brilliantly expose the mystique and honour of the Catholic church as one ridiculous charade.
  
  In part, that comes from the way that director Edward Berger focuses so much on the rigmarole behind the ceremonial stuff. We see the old pope’s lifeless body and a bishop struggling to take a ring off his bony finger. We get close-ups of hands pawing robes wrapped in plastic. We see the smoke signals of the Sistine Chapel released from their tiny little canisters. The candidates are repeatedly stuffed into ordinary rooms and buses between the grand halls of the Vatican. And there’s all sorts amusing of interactions with everyday technology; from nuns printing stuff, to the Cardinals speaking through shoddy microphones.
  
  But mostly, the exposé comes from Peter Straughan’s script which focuses on all sorts of political infighting and corruption.
  
  All of it is seen through the eyes of Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) – a man begrudgingly tasked with running the voting process who is also deep in a crisis of faith. His feelings are not helped by the fact that he has to deal with surprise last-minute candidate Benitez arriving from Kabul (Carlos Diehz), rumours that one candidate was dismissed by the pope shortly before his death (John Lithgow), and revelations of another candidate (Lucian Msamati) being embroiled in a child sex scandal. Then, all the while, debates rage between the traditionalists (led by Sergio Castellitto’s Goffredo) who want to close off the church from other religions, sexualities and nationalities, and the liberals (led by Lawrence as well as Stanley Tucci’s Bellini) who think it should be more inclusive.
  
  That makes for a brilliantly belittling portrait of these supposedly mighty figures, and that’s only emphasised further by Lawrence’s reaction to the elected pope revealing he’s intersex. He’s mortified at first, and only accepts him because he reveals the old pope knew about it. Frankly, if that’s not the ultimate sign of the nonsense behind the entire charade, I don’t know what is.
  
  WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE: Because the characters are made to seem so silly, it’s hard to engage too much with any of them. Only Lawrence with his acerbic comments and rolling eyes will hook you in, but even his final moments undo that.
  
  VERDICT: Edward Berger’s ‘Conclave,’ is a brilliantly exposing portrait of the corruption and, ultimately, the silliness of the Catholic Church.

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