It's hardly a surprise to watch a movie in which the selection of a new pope bristles with intrigue, personal ambition, and conflicting agendas, crosscurrents made more potent by their connection to ardently held beliefs. After all, cardinals are people, too.
Basing his movie on a novel by Robert Harris, director Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) slowly develops the movie's political maneuvering as conflict emerges between those who want to keep the Church on a liberal track and those who yearn for the rigidity of the past.
Berger pays meticulous attention to detail and relies heavily on a terrific set of performances. As dean of the College of Cardinals, Ralph Fiennes' Cardinal Lawrence has been assigned the unenviable task of running the fractious conclave at which a pope will be elected. Election requires a two-thirds majority.
The role fits Fiennes, an actor capable of great precision, perfectly. A man of balance, Lawrence sides with the liberals but tries to maintain neutrality. To add further complication, he's also in the midst of a personal crisis of faith. He also must fight off his own candidacy for a job he insists he doesn't want. Others are more transparent.
Other key players are Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci), an opponent of the constrictions of traditionalism, and Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a churchman who's unsettled by the rise of Third World cardinals. Tedesco wants the papacy returned to Italy -- with him as pope, of course.
Other cardinals include the Nigerian Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), an early frontrunner who, if elected, would become the first Black pontiff. Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow), a popular American, has his eye on the papal throne and makes no bones about it.
Gradually, Cardinal Benitez from Kabul (Carlos Diehz) becomes a dark horse, an unknown who was a last-minute appointment by the late pope.
Essentially a movie about cloistered men, Conclave features Isabella Rossellini as Sister Agnes, a nun who reluctantly insinuates herself into the proceedings.
Berger creates the same kind of interest found in the novel: We try to guess who'll emerge as the Church's leader.
Credit Berger and his team for creating first-class atmospherics -- both in terms of the movie's edgy score and a secluded church environment dominated by the proscribed behavior of ritual and majesty.
I had read Harris' novel and viewed its ending as more of a provocative punch line than a satisfying conclusion. The movie, which adheres closely to the novel, has the same politically charged ending (no fair telling), and the third act tends to go a little over-the-top.
By the end, the screenplay (by Harris and Peter Straughan) has expanded its thematic reach to a near breaking point, but Conclave remains one of the most crisply acted and involving ensemble pieces of the year.
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