Well, why don’t they make more movies about electing a pope? The procedure involves a small number of powerful men from all corners of the world gathering in one room — the Sistine Chapel, at that — to select a pontiff from amongst themselves. What other world leader is chosen this way? (Okay, the U.N. Secretary General, but that doesn’t have as much cachet as the papacy.) The whole setup lends itself to cinematic treatment, and Nanni Moretti made it into his shaggily charming 2012 comedy We Have a Pope. Robert Harris’ page-turning novel Conclave seems to have been written with a movie adaptation in mind, and now that film arrives this week as the year’s best political thriller and its best Christian film, one that will sweep you up in its storytelling even if you have no interest in the workings of the Catholic Church.
Harris’ 2016 novel is painstakingly researched, and so Edward Berger (the German director who won an Oscar for his Netflix adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front) revels in the little details about this infrequent occasion: the lined faces and differing outfits of the anonymous cardinals casting their votes, the nuns making tortellini by hand for the cardinals’ meals, the metal detectors and other security measures intended to prevent any outside interruptions. The movie was shot at Rome’s legendary Cinecittà Studios, and you might swear that the actors and cameras were snuck inside the Vatican. Berger creates some memorable visuals like the overhead shot of the cardinals parading through St. Peter’s Square carrying identical white umbrellas to protect them from the rain.
The film begins with the previous Holy Father (Bruno Novello) passing away peacefully in his sleep, meaning that the most important man in the Vatican becomes Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the dean of the College of Cardinals who must run the election of a new pope. He’s supposed to be impartial, but nevertheless he’s pressured by all the leading candidates: Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a hardliner who wants to bring back Latin Mass and thinks only Italian men should ever be pope; Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci), a liberal who wants to stop Tedesco at any cost; Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), a homophobic Nigerian who thinks it’s past time for an African pope; and Joseph Tremblay (John Lithgow), a venal Canadian who mainly wants the papacy because it’s there. As successive rounds of balloting fail to produce the two-thirds majority needed to choose a new pontiff, Lawrence is horrified to see a fifth candidate emerging: himself.
The movie mostly follows the book’s pattern of artfully placed bombshells, and that’s not even counting the actual bomb that a terrorist sets off outside the Sistine Chapel. There’s the sudden appearance of a Mexican cardinal (Carlos Diehz) who was elevated to Archbishop of Kabul in secret because his archdiocese is so dangerous, a Polish archbishop (Jacek Koman) comes to Thomas with distressing information on the pope’s final actions, and a nun (Isabella Rossellini) leaves evidence for Thomas to find that can torpedo a front-runner’s candidacy. An Irish monsignor (Brían F. O’Byrne) who acts as Thomas’ private investigator finds out more than he wanted to know, and Thomas is reduced to breaking into the late pope’s sealed-off personal quarters to find vital info. He unhappily compares the race to America’s election as he investigates charges of simony, which is the first time I and probably you have heard that word used in a movie. The story leaves a wicked sting in the tail even after the new pope assumes the throne. It’s too good to spoil, though it’s nearly the same as in the book, and you can scarcely fault Cardinal Lawrence for needing to sit down when he hears the news.
Fiennes can be an awful drag when he’s playing these guys who have the weight of the world on their shoulders (The Reader), but here he manages to anchor the proceedings as a man who’s privately struggling over whether performing administrative duties in the Vatican is the best way he can serve God and yearns for the election to be over so he can go back to being unimportant. As the Church’s lofty ideals rub up against the grubby realities of canvassing and whipping votes, cardinals talk themselves into candidates they don’t like on the grounds that worse men have been pope through the centuries (which they have). Somehow, out of all the backroom deals and nose-holding comes a moment of grace that religion and politics have in common. Whether you believe in God or the power of cinema, all this makes Conclave entertaining enough to restore your faith.
Conclave
Starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and John Lithgow. Directed by Edward Berger. Written by Peter Straughan, based on Robert Harris’ novel. Rated PG.
