(Bloomberg) -- Choosing a new pope is a solemn affair shrouded in mystery, but behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, a papal conclave is just another contest. Gregory X ascended to the throne in 1271 after a bitter three-year struggle. The election of Pius II in 1458 followed an actual brawl.
Director Edward Berger proved in 2022’s All Quiet on the Western Front that he’s a master of war movies. And he’s ridden into battle once again in his new film, the meticulously crafted thriller Conclave. Even though it lacks actual carnage, Conclave may be the more violent film.
The music clues us in first. Composer Volker Bertelmann (who won an Oscar for his All Quiet score) primes us for horror with lots of slashing strings swooping into queasy keys. The cardinals in Peter Straughan’s script, adapted from the popular 2016 novel by Robert Harris, are conniving cutthroats indeed. The Holy Father isn’t even cold in his bed before these red-robed vultures are circling.
Here comes the liberal Bellini (Stanley Tucci), sweet as the peachy cocktail that shares his name, professing humbly that of course he doesn’t want the job: “No sane man would want the papacy.” Adeyami (Lucian Msamati), a charismatic and very conservative Nigerian, definitely does want it—he’d be the first Black pope in more than 1,500 years. The vaping Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) is theologically even more conservative, but his ultimate aim is parochial: to get an Italian back on the throne. The politics of the unctuous and meddlesome Tremblay (John Lithgow) are a bit mysterious, but he’s wanted the job so openly for so long that nobody trusts him. There’s little piety on hand. The factions sit together at meals, Italians at one table, Africans at another, liberals across the way, nervously counting votes and spreading slander.
Running this beauty pageant is the mild, studious Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the dean of the College of Cardinals. Lawrence is a very good manager—and investigator, once the character assassinations begin—but he comes into the conclave in the midst of his own crisis. He’s just not sure God is listening anymore. Fiennes gives a masterful performance, charging on with determination despite the burden of his doubts.
Calm and capable as he is, things quickly go awry. First there’s a surprise appearance: No one in the college even knew there was a cardinal of Kabul (Carlos Diehz), yet here the man is, apparently a secret the last pope kept on account of his dangerous posting in Afghanistan.
But that secret is nothing compared with the dirty crimson laundry that soon tumbles out. Although the ensuing revelations of concupiscence, simony and worse are implausible, to put it mildly, the action never fails to be gripping, with geopolitical events intruding to keep the tension rising even higher. Straughan, who previously adapted Wolf Hall, that masterpiece of intrigue at Henry VIII’s court, into a crackling miniseries, knows well how plots get whispered in hallways.
Those whispers really carry in the marble-covered walls of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, a sort of Courtyard by Vatican. The banality of the whole thing—a conclave is, essentially, a business convention—only underscores the venality of the participants. Berger lingers over shots of the cardinals shuffling around like a pack of traveling salesmen (salesmen who look like red penguins), climbing into a tour bus to get to their rooms, fumbling with their key cards, unpacking their phone cords and travel shampoo, figuring out a Nespresso machine. Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine shoots all of this beautifully. Their cigarette breaks are especially photogenic.
Conclave offers delicious pulpy twists and contentious religious and political questions à la The DaVinci Code, and never more so than when the steely Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini), who’s seen it all, good and bad, arrives to nudge these pious sinners toward a resolution. Agnes is pulled one way by her sense of devotion and duty, and another by her resentment, and Rossellini plays these contrasts with sly grace. Not every actress could nail centuries of Catholic misogyny with one brilliantly timed curtsey.
Every one of these middle managers decided decades ago what his papal name would be. And they’d go to any lengths to hear it proclaimed after the white smoke rises above the Holy See. Or almost any lengths: Shrinking at being asked to do a bit of dirty work to eliminate a rival, one cardinal laments, “I would be the Richard Nixon of popes.” His conspirator’s droll reply: “We’ve had worse.”
But Berger’s film rises above its potboiler roots; some of its biggest thrills are aesthetic. The Holy See doesn’t generally cooperate with features or TV series (and even if they did, they would never have allowed Conclave), meaning production designer Suzie Davies and her team had perhaps the most important job on the film: re-creating the Vatican at the legendary Cinecittà Studios.
Much of the movie takes place in the Sistine Chapel, possibly the best-known room on Earth, and the set is flawless, from the voluptuous Sibyls in the eaves down to the swirling Cosmati tile below, allowing Berger to enlist the frescoes into the action. At one tense moment, Lawrence is able to stare down Satan, for example. The vividly sinuous paintings make such lively scene partners—Michelangelo ought to get an Oscar nomination.
Conclave may irritate or offend millions of Catholics, but despite its gaudy plot, it gets one thing absolutely right. The future of the church and the spiritual and everyday lives of 1.4 billion people hinge on a quality you won’t find in the teachings of Jesus Christ: ruthless ambition.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
