Review by Tim Robins
WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS
There are times when I thank my birth mother for giving me up for adoption with a note attached stating that under no circumstances should I be brought up as a Catholic. Watching Conclave (2024) is one of those times. From the perspective of Catholicism, it is without doubt a sinful pleasure.
The film’s conceit is an investigation following the sudden death of the incumbent Pope, staged as an Agatha Christie mystery with Ralph Fiennes as an ecclesiastical Poirot, Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence. Lawrence is charged with ensuring that The Apostolic Succession goes smoothly. With only 24 hours to the Conclave, in which 100 or so Cardinals will be sequestered to vote on a new Supreme Pontiff, what could possibly go wrong? I’m glad you asked.
Adapted by screenwriter Peter Straughan from the thriller by Robert Harris, Conclave, directed by Edward Berger, has it all: furtive meetings in cloistered corridors, the secret lives of the clergy Cardinals’ desperate power plays to become Pope, and, of course, nuns – lots and lots of them.
There are plenty of twists and turns to keep you hooked on the way. Does Cardinal Lawrence secretly want the papacy for himself? And who is the mysterious Vincent Benitez, a last minute arrival, who claims to have been privately appointed Archbishop of Kabul in secret, by none other than the Pope, before his death? Cardinal Benitez is played by Carlos Diez with a quiet sincerity that belies the character’s impact on proceedings.
To up the stakes, the four leaders in the race for the papacy hold very different positions on the future of the church. Front runner and preferred candidate Aldo Bellini is a liberal in the vein of the Pope; Joshua Adeyemi of Nigeria, a social conservative who believes homosexuals should burn in Hell; Joseph Tremblay of Canada, a mainstream conservative; and Goffredo Tedesco of Italy, a radical reactionary who, in these troubled times, believes The Church should wage an uncompromising war on all sinners.
The cast are top notch. Fiennes wears a worried frown throughout the proceedings. The only change being what, at any one point in time, is he worrying about? Stanley Tucci captures the earnest yet duplicitous American Cardinal Bellini. John Lithgow plays Tremblay as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but this is Lithgow, so we know it would. Sergio Castellitto is a force of nature, or God, as Cardinal Tedesco. Lucian Msamati is convincing as Cardinal Adeyemi, a candidate with desperate aspirations that lead to a “dark night of the soul”.
Unsurprisingly, the film’s harshest critics have come from reviewers belonging to the Catholic faith. Writing for Angelus, a Los Angeles based Catholic online news site, Stefano Rebeggiani describes the film as “a badly written, poorly researched, half-baked mystery that takes itself too seriously but turns at times into unwitting comedy”.
Even secular critics have labelled the film “silly”. But of course it is. How could it be otherwise? According to David Gibson, Director of the Centre on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, in conversation with GQ magazine, all papal conclaves are, by their nature, absurd. “I mean, 120 — more or less — scarlet-robed guys go into the Sistine Chapel and are locked away until one of them emerges as the pope, after secret ballots and Latin oaths and white smoke funnelled through a farmhouse chimney.”
Exaggerated seriousness is the very definition of camp. And of course the seriousness is also funny, in the same way audiences treated the 1960s’ Batman TV show. Conclave is all the more serious for being funny; it is knowingly knowing. This is carried through to the direction. Director Edward Berger delights in the juxtaposition of the red robed Cardinals and marble colonnades. Outside Vatican City, a political protest explodes into the Conclave. Berger frames this moment as if it were a classical oil painting, and as if God Himself were commenting on the proceedings.
But among the silliness, Conclave weaves themes of faith, personal and professional ethics and the role of gender and sexuality in Catholicism. In the Catholic church, women still cannot be ordained a deacon, or a priest let alone a bishop, and so can never ascend to the papacy, and their exclusion from high office seems so taken-for-granted, I didn’t give it any great significance. But by the film’s climax, I realised the foreshadowing had well and truly set me up and set me up for a fall.
No, the new Pope is not a woman. And while it seems that men make decisions but women just get to make the food, nuns do have an important role to play in the plot. There to be seen and not heard, naturally the nuns see and hear everything. Cue a quiet but forceful performance by Isabella Rossellini as Sister Agnes, the cardinals’ head caterer and housekeeper who knows more about the Conclave’s behind-the-scenes politics than she wants to tell.
While I can treat Conclave as great entertainment, others, such as Christina M. Sorrentino, writing in Missio Dei, an independent, online publication for aspiring Catholic writers, considers the film to be blasphemous. Sorrentino criticises the reduction of the papal conclave to organisational politics. She writes, “The Church is not simply an institution but a vessel of truth that holds the entirety of Divine Revelation”. To be fair, the film makes this very point by contrasting politicking with the Church’s aspirations.
Of course, the mere suggestion the Pope could, at some point in the future, be a woman is an anathema. Sorrentino writes, “Jesus gave authority to twelve men; the Apostles were the Church’s first bishops, and St. Peter was chosen by Christ to be the first Pope… If Jesus had willed for a woman to be a priest or a bishop, would He not have given such authority to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the most blessed of all women?”
So, for Sorrentino, there can be no possibility of a future that is different from the past. But times do change. There was a time when cinemas showing Conclave might have been picketed, and all involved in the film excommunicated. My suggestion is to go enjoy the film and take any feelings of guilt to confession. I wouldn’t let the prospect of eternal damnation spoil my chances of enjoying this compelling thriller.
Tim Robbins
Conclave is in cinemas now
(Not to be confused with the similarly-titled 2006 film, The Conclave, directed by Christoph Schrewe, Brian Blessed and James Faulkner)
• The Encyclopaedia Britanica has information on genuine Conclave procedures here
• Conclave by Robert Harris (AmazonUK Affiliate Link)
Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, 118 cardinals are meeting in conclave to cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election.
They are holy men. But they are ambitious. And they have rivals. Over the next 72 hours, one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth. Who will it be?
- About the Author
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A freelance journalist and Doctor Who fanzine editor since 1978, Tim Robins has written on comics, films, books and TV programmes for a wide range of publications including Starburst, Interzone, Primetime and TV Guide.
His brief flirtation with comics includes ghost inking a 2000AD strip and co-writing a Doctor Who strip with Mike Collins. Since 1990 he worked at the University of Glamorgan where he was a Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Media Studies and the social sciences. Academically, he has published on the animation industry in Wales and approaches to social memory. He claims to be a card carrying member of the Politically Correct, a secret cadre bent on ruling the entire world and all human thought.
Categories: Features, Film, Other Worlds, Reviews
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Looks good. I’ll have to keep an eye out for that. Probably would have ignored it if I hadn’t read this review. Thanks