Review: Conclave

Director:  Edward Berger

Stars:  Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, Carlos Diehz

There’s a misconception in popular modern horror filmmaking that you need a jump or a scare every 10 minutes in order to keep an audience’s attention, which has led to a certain kind of multiplex offering that plays more like a theme park ride than a narrative journey. Edward Berger’s deliciously enjoyable papal romp Conclave isn’t a horror movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it operates in a similar mode to these pictures, peppering its running time with small scale melodramas and revelations that you could almost set your watch to, spaced out as evenly as chapters in a novel.

Ah, that might be why. Conclave is drawn from Robert Harris’ worldwide best-selling potboiler of the same name, a seemingly wrought and sombre peek behind the robes of the Vatican that mostly finds a home in dishy soap opera and scandal. Let me measure my tone; there’s nothing wrong with that, and being wildly entertained is as good a reason as any to enter the escapism of fiction, be that a book or a movie. I’ve not read Harris’ book, but Berger’s adaptation kept me on the hook for two commanding hours. But two hours alone.

Our ever-dependable Ralph Fiennes has his brow suitably furrowed as Vatican Dean Cardinal Lawrence, uppermost aide to the Pope himself whom we meet too late, as he has passed in the night. Lawrence’s duty now is to assemble all of the church’s cardinals for the titular conclave, where they will vote among themselves – sequestered from influence from the outside world – over and over until a majority is reached. But, as in any corner of the world where power is at play, politics and backstabbing are commonplace and seemingly unavoidable.

The progressive vote might go to Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci), vocally reluctant to ascend to such a position, but eminently ambitious enough to still accept nominations. More intolerant, right-leaning inclinations are represented by Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto, proving that vaping is the new ‘twirling a moustache’). Cardinals Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati) and Tremblay (John Lithgow) split the popular vote. And, unexpectedly, there’s an outsider in the deck; ‘secret’ Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz), ordained by the deceased eminence without anyone knowing, who rides into town from Kabul with an air of mystery and naivety, entirely unvetted.

Conclave locks in with the men (and a hurried procession of nuns led by Isabella Rossellini’s Sister Agnes) over the course of the days it takes for their machinations to take place. Though they don’t lack for luxuries, Berger and his production team make their habitation quarters feel very much like a cell-block out of a Thomas Harris novel. All dramatically blood red doors and cold marble. It’s incredibly fanciful. These days seem particularly like a sentence for Lawrence, whose own faith is waning. Amid all the bickering his seems like the sole voice of reason, so he is further frustrated when this very quality starts earning him votes, placing him in competition with his friend Bellini.

Berger’s direction defers to the actors and the material, meaning that – an occasional montage with Ron Frickeian aspirations aside – there’s precious little visual grandstanding. The most he’ll go for is a recurrent motif of placing Fiennes near to us but sliced in half by the edge of frame, furthering the notion of a man torn in two. No, more commonly Conclave is presented simply and without technical pretense, something befitting its general temperament, which is somewhere between a whodunnit and a mildly campy episode of The West Wing.

Almost lost in the process – and this is partially the point – are the notions and values of the church itself. The fraught politicking, petty squabbles and backroom chats often leave the best ideals of Catholicism out of the conclave. As intimated, the storyline throws in scandals, truth bombs (and even regular bombs) at a measured pace, but Lawrence’s crisis of faith in particular often feels sidelined in favour of picking over the callow behaviour of privileged men vying for power.

Then there’s the film’s final reveal, a ‘twist’ of sorts that dangles it over a precipice. It’s tough to talk enigmatically about this portion of the story, as it has the potential to reshape  Conclave‘s overall intentions. The decision to go this way, however, offers up a schism. It is either a concerted effort to engage in a popular furore – one often stoked by media bias – or a craven attempt to latch onto a buzzy topic for the sake of sensationalism and notions of relevancy. Given Berger’s inclination to play the whole as pretentious yet wantonly silly, its tough to glean where Conclave shakes out. The feeling, in the aftermath, is that no ill-will is intended, but rather that this is an entertainment piece with that on its mind above all else.

It is effective at its job, in the moment. The actors all chew scenery with aplomb. Tucci and Lithgow particularly have a sense of the underlying camp in the melodrama and push their respective roles just the right amount in this direction. Rossellini, too, has a certain glimmer in the eyes that commands respect. But, like most airport paperbacks, Conclave is an amusing diversion that struggles to request further contemplation once it’s served a purpose. High production value and all-star cast aside, it’s a bit of an ITV drama dressed up as prestige cinema, though more enjoyable than most that try to make that disguise stick.