The opening shot of Conclave follows Ralph Fiennes from behind as he hurriedly shuffles through the streets of Vatican City, accompanied by an insistent and propulsive musical score. This is the sort of introduction you'd expect from a Cold War thriller, but it sits awkwardly and intriguingly at the beginning of a movie about the election of a new Pope. It’s as clear a cinematic signifier as you could possibly need that Conclave is far from an ordinary film.
It’s a fascinating choice of project for filmmaker Edward Berger, who spent the opening months of 2023 on the awards circuit when his remake of All Quiet on the Western Front became an unexpected Oscars darling. He has travelled from the blood, sweat, and muck of the trenches to the cassocks and clergy of the Vatican for this tale of Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) and his role as the organiser of the ultra-secret vote to elect the next Pope.
Like any good political thriller, Conclave establishes the runners and riders nice and early – as well as the complex interpersonal dynamics between them. Lawrence is a liberal and supports his friend Bellini (Stanley Tucci) as the main opposition to the reactionary conservative Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) and moderate Tremblay (John Lithgow). But the real intrigue is in the things we don’t see – the dirty-dealing, back-stabbing, and jockeying for power that has infected this version of the church. It turns out there’s no white smoke without fire.
Despite the apparently lofty office of the Pope, this election is every bit as compromised by macho posturing as any scenario dominated by men inevitably becomes. But Conclave is given an extra layer of intrigue by the fact it’s essentially a mystery-thriller narrative in which our “detective” character is actively resisting the wheels of the narrative. “I’m not a witchfinder,” he hisses in the wake of one revelation that places him in yet another moral bind, having earlier explained that “some are shepherds and some are chosen to manage the farm” – placing himself firmly in the latter category.
Fiennes is defiantly unshowy and measured in a film that delights in drawing comedic contrast between the unfailing traditionalism of the church and the trappings of the modern world. Berger shoots from afar as a group of cassock-clad cardinals board a minibus and delights in depicting a representative of a 2,000-year-old religion grappling with a photocopier. It’s a movie about juxtaposition and the intransigence of a church trying to fight its own decline in relevancy.
This translates into the desperation of the characters, teased out beautifully in the script by British playwright Peter Straughan – best known for the shadowy mystery of the 2011 version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He’s right at home here, adapting Robert Harris’s 2016 novel and translating its airport paperback sensibilities into a thoughtful, smart prestige drama.
Well, almost.
After an hour and a half of measured, complex, knotty storytelling, Conclave explodes into madness for its climactic half an hour. It’s a jump off the narrative deep end too absurd for the movie’s carefully-crafted world to endure. The actual content of the final act isn’t a problem in isolation – in fact, there are some fascinating and worthwhile ideas at play – but the tonal whiplash is neck-snapping in its absurdity. You can take the fiction out of the airport, but you can’t take the airport out of the fiction and, while I have a lot of love for that sort of literature, I like to know that I’m reading it before it slaps me across the cheek.
But the final act stumbles are dwarfed by the sheer entertainment value of Conclave as a whole. Berger has delivered another meticulous and well-acted drama, which wears the clothes of a political thriller underneath the billowing robes of Catholic traditionalism.
Conclave is in UK cinemas from 29th November.
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