The following article contains some spoilers for “Conclave”
Cardinal Thomas Lawrence stands before the assembled cardinal electors and delivers a stark warning. A scarlet-vested Atlas crushed by his immense duties and persistent doubts, Lawrence (played by Ralph Fiennes) is the reluctant dean of the College of Cardinals tasked with organizing the election of a new pope. Filled with trepidation and spiritual angst, perhaps most akin to the tortured village pastor in Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light, Lawrence instructs the cardinals to reject a most pernicious sin: certainty. “Let us pray that God will grant us a pope who doubts,” says Lawrence to the puzzled prelates. He pinpoints certainty as corrosive to a unified church and as a threat to belief. As you would expect, the homily startles the cardinals as they navigate entrenched political alliances and build partisan coalitions to select the best man for Peter’s throne.
Relentlessly entertaining as it cascades into absurdity, Conclave presents its titular election as a masterclass in politicking and backstabbing while competing factions battle to dismantle or preserve the late pope’s legacy. Based on the 2016 thriller by British novelist Robert Harris, the film explores unchecked ambition and rampant mendacity among scheming churchmen, whose treachery and double-crossing calls to mind a contentious political campaign. (What a timely topic.) The cardinals’ penchant for gossip would be especially odious to Pope Francis, who has repeatedly condemned the practice throughout his pontificate. “The great gossiper is the devil,” said Francis in 2020, “because he is a liar who seeks to divide the church.”
In an interview, the Oscar-winning director Edward Berger, born in the former West Germany to Austrian and Swiss parents, said the imperfect cardinals are not unlike us. “All these cardinals in this movie get ‘corrupted’ by the same thing we struggle with, which is to keep the essence of who we are and why we do things,” said Berger. Drawing a connection between himself and Cardinal Lawrence, Berger says the film wrestles with the question, “Why?” As Lawrence’s responsibilities grow and his world takes on greater complexity, he drifts further away from the “essence” of his faith. Berger, whose most recent films have been big-budget international productions, said he also grapples with the “why” of his work.
The director said that he is not a frequent churchgoer as he sometimes feels emotionally disconnected from the institution. But he acknowledged the church’s irreplaceable role in shaping our history and identities. He describes his faith as more of a personal matter he practices in private. “I very much believe in something bigger than me—and I don’t know what it is,” said Berger. “There’s something bigger than all of us, and I think that’s a beautiful thing to hold onto. It makes life richer.” But in Conclave, he says the core is Lawrence’s uncertainty—what Berger calls a universal experience.
“The essence of life is doubt,” he said.
Conclave unspools secret after secret, with each subsequent revelation more unbelievable than the last, as underdogs and favored papabile fall victim to their own crimes and indiscretions. Sound the suspenseful strings. The film commands attention in a “Are you seeing this?” kind of way, but its torrent of shocks and shifts left this reviewer bewildered by the end. It’s edge-of-your-seat stuff—and proudly ridiculous.
Three weeks after an apparent heart attack silences the aging pontiff, a Pope Francis-type both vaunted and vilified for a series of reforms, the cardinal electors arrive in Rome to choose his successor. Cigarettes litter the palazzo and the men get to work building voting blocs. Cardinal Aldo Bellini (a marvelous Stanley Tucci) is the great hope of the left-wing cardinals, a former confidant of the pope who shared his taste for progress. Proclaiming that “no sane man would want the papacy,” Bellini performs a delicate tightrope walk for his brother cardinals, pushing back against efforts to elect him while positioning himself as the only responsible choice.
The Bellini cardinals are strongly united against the conservative firebrand Cardinal Goffredo Tedesco (played by Sergio Castellitto) and the Nigerian-born traditionalist Cardinal Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati). Bellini characterizes Tedesco as a backwards-thinking enemy of progress who “fought the pope every single day of his pontificate” and slandered him to the press. Adeyemi isn’t any better, Bellini argues, because the African cardinal “believes that homosexuals should be sent to prison in this world and hell in the next.”
The wild-card candidate is the Mexican-born Cardinal Vincent Benitez (played by Carlos Diehz), a shy figure secretly appointed by the pope as the archbishop of war-torn Kabul. This is an unusual but not unprecedented papal practice. Pope St. John Paul II elevated an anonymous cardinal in pectore in 2003 and Pope St. John XXIII, a role model for Cardinal Lawrence, named three in 1960. But because John Paul II never revealed the identity of his cardinal, even in his final testament, the prelate lost his red hat and was ineligible to participate in the 2005 conclave.
The secrets start to spill within the opening minutes of Conclave, when the prefect of the papal household, a right-hand man to the Holy Father, tells Lawrence that a conservative cardinal had been accused of “gross misconduct” and dismissed by the pope right before his death. When Lawrence confronts Cardinal Joseph Tremblay (a shifty John Lithgow) with these allegations, he is shocked and incredulous.
The appearance of Sister Agnes, a severe and enigmatic Isabella Rossellini who seems to know everyone’s worst secrets, only accelerates the damning accusations against other cardinals until Lawrence, despite his serious misgivings, emerges as the only legitimate candidate. That is, until a third-act explosion (somewhat of a “jump the shark” moment) reveals the unknown Cardinal Benitez as a sensible shepherd among “small petty men.”
Clearly, the film is not a factual account of the proceedings that elevate a cardinal to the papacy, but Suzie Davies’s colossal production design, featuring a stunning reconstruction of the Sistine Chapel, lends the film a realism despite its narrative embellishments. (Curious viewers seeking an in-depth chronicle of a real conclave can consult The Election of Pope Francis by the Vatican journalist Gerard O’Connell.)
The film’s conclusion, a truly unexpected twist, will undoubtedly polarize audiences. In an article for Slate, film critic Dana Stevens wonders if this denouement is “honorable, offensive or just plain ridiculous.” The answer is some combination of the second and third options, as the ending distorts a question of identity into a lurid (at worst, shameful) secret. Why does every cardinal in this conclave harbor some earth-shattering secret no one—except maybe Sister Agnes—knows about?
But what holds the picture together is a nuanced, measured performance from Ralph Fiennes, who acts as the primary bulwark against melodrama. He presents Cardinal Lawrence as a walking Socratic paradox (“I know that I know nothing”), a reserved “manager” bound by obligation and tormented by belief. He is Christ pleading in the garden, Augustine wrestling with his conscience, Mother Teresa confronting the silence of God. His eyes are constantly searching, his look perpetually unsure, questioning, even guessing. His crisis of belief extends beyond faith—and to the church itself.
Conclave is in theaters now.
Image: Focus Features/Everett Collection
Add comment