"Conclave" Review

There is a joke that every Cardinal goes into a papal conclave a Pope and, but one, comes out a Cardinal. Such are the ground rules for the next trudge through the Oscars Death March, Conclave, which is up for eight Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Score, Editing, Production and Costume Design), and deserves perhaps three of those & is missing one.

 The Pope has died and Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the dean of the College of Cardinals, is charged with conducting the papal conclave to elect a successor. The Cardinals from around the world travel to Rome to be sequestered until the work is done. However, right before the gates are closed, Lawrence is informed by the prefect of the papal household that on the day the Pope died he had demanded that a leading contender, Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow), resign and an extra Cardinal, Benitez (Carlos Diehz), who has paperwork claiming that he was secretly named Cardinal to Kabul, Afghanistan (a place where being non-Muslim is bad for your health), has arrived to participate.

 In addition to Tremblay, the leading contenders are Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci), an extremely liberal priest whose views would be at home with the Episcopalians; Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), a Nigerian who would be the first African Pope, representing the continent where the Church is growing the most as it withers elsewhere; and Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a staunch traditionalist who believes the Church needs to return to the pre-Vatican II ways with Latin Mass and less coddling of sinners which Bellini believes must be accommodated.

As Lawrence tries to herd the red-capped cats, shenanigans begin to occur. A nun causes an outburst leading to a revelation that knocks out one of the contenders. A discovery of corruption takes out another. The votes shift from ballot to ballot and even Lawrence starts gaining support, which annoys him because he planned to resign his Deanship, but was denied by the Pope. And in the outside world, explosions are heard, eventually impacting the Sistine Chapel itself.

The obvious setup is intended to provide avatars representing various factions in the Church, ranging from traditional to conservative to liberal to Episcopalian. Everyone makes a little soapbox speech to tell the audience what they represent with the intention of framing the traditionalists as backwards cavemen blocking progress and the liberals as the good guys because the only good Catholic is a borderline Episcopalian.

The problem with Conclave is that is spends a whole lot of time depicting the rigid ceremonial rituals of the conclave, but never explains why votes are shifting from candidate to candidate. We know the cartooned positions of the candidates (of course the most traditional is also painted as racist because he wants an Italian Pope again, not an African one), but never hear what the rest of the class thinks. No one is making speeches about why they should become top dog, so upon what are they voting?

Then there is the matter of the intrigues surrounding with the deceased Pontiff and his actions. Everyone claims that he decided this or that, but what is the truth? Tremblay denies being asked to resign and says his involvement in sandbagging a competitor was a the direction of the Pope. Benitez claims the Pope knew of the medical condition that provides the whammy twist which caps the movie with pure wishcasting by those who despise the Church. Lawrence wanted to resign because he had doubts and that the Pope may've had doubts about the Church, but neither are explained. We have time to watch them swear an oath over their ballots, but not get to know anyone more fully.

The twist ending - which I'd heard about long ago and had crossed Conclave off my too-watch list over until the Oscars Death March forced me to view it - is actually less offensive than advertised, but it reminds just how thin the script is because we're to believe the ultimate winner of Who Wants To Be A  Pope? was determined by a trite, bromide-rich, pabulum speech that catapults the speaker over everyone else. As if.

Which is a shame because everything built upon this thin tissue of plotting & two-dimensional characterizations is quite good starting with the UNnominated cinematography of Stéphane Fontaine (Jackie) and the UNnominated direction of Edward Berger (2022's All Quiet on the Western Front) as they team to create lush, painterly frames. (How they were overlooked in favor of the Academy's woke tantrum, Emilia Perez, only reinforces how damaging that movie has been to this year's Oscars.)

The stacked cast deliver solid performances as expected, though Isabella Rossilini's nominated performance is the smallest & least worthy. She's not bad, but all she does is glower in a handful of scene in a film by its nature is a sausage fest. Fiennes is very good and deserving of his nod, his first in a shocking 28 years since The English Patient. (He should've been nominated for The Menu along with the movie for everything. The Oscars suck.) Tucci and Lithgow are their usual good and Msamati should enjoy more attention.

As always, if the script is weak, no amount of visual opulence nor thespian skill can overcome the structural deficits. While it's not as much of a smear job as the Catholic Church is routinely given by media (looking at you, Dan Brown) that I'd heard, that Conclave can't decide if it wants to present a debate about the direction of the Church or just be a pulpy potboiler (e.g. the Pope hides incriminating documents in the padding of his headboard) prevents it from amounting to much though many will try to find meaning in the white smoke emanating from the chimney.

Score: 4/10. Catch it on cable/streaming. (Currently on Peacock.)