Con­clave review – a slick romp with delu­sions of grandeur

The view from out­side of St Peters in Vat­i­can City is just a hum­ble lit­tle chim­ney that juts out from the roof. The world’s eyes are trained on this chim­ney dur­ing the rare occa­sion of a papal con­clave – that is, the closed demo­c­ra­t­ic process of elect­ing a new Pope when the pre­vi­ous one either stands down or snuffs it.

Edward Berger’s Con­clave, his fol­low-up to sur­prise Oscar dar­ling, All Qui­et on the West­ern Front, pro­pos­es two things: that the major­i­ty of those men vying for the papa­cy are self-serv­ing scum­bags who are very hap­py to skim over spir­i­tu­al doc­trine if it means they’ll have a bet­ter chance of snatch­ing the top prize; and also, that con­claves are actu­al­ly not so dis­sim­i­lar to a vapid, Love Island-type pop­u­lar­i­ty con­test in which a fick­le elec­torate can have the mind swayed with the gen­tlest of prods. Whether either of those things have any foun­da­tion in real­i­ty is moot, as the film is not inter­est­ed in ques­tion­ing the details of this anti­quat­ed process, but it is very inter­est­ed in being a slick, robust thriller with a hot new twist drop­ping at every ten minute mark.

At the cen­tre of the furore is Ralph Fiennes’ Car­di­nal Lawrence, a can­ny back­room oper­a­tor and papal diplo­mat whose reluc­tance to coor­di­nate the con­clave stems from recent doubts he’s been hav­ing about his faith. These doubts are com­pound­ed fur­ther when he starts to receive votes to be the guy who wears the big hat. He is known to be one of the more lib­er­al car­di­nals, and so in his posi­tion, he feels it his duty to make sure all the assem­bled spir­i­tu­al lead­ers have all the facts, espe­cial­ly when it comes to the more con­ser­v­a­tive candidates.

You’ve got vap­ing hip­ster Car­di­nal Tedesc­so (Ser­gio Castel­lit­to) who’d wel­come a war against Islam; you’ve got Car­di­nal Adeye­mi (Lucian Msamati) whose cool exte­ri­or is shat­tered upon the not­ing the pres­ence of a par­tic­u­lar nun; you’ve got Car­di­nal Trem­blay (John Lith­gow) who may have been asked to stand down as the pre­vi­ous Pope’s final request. But then you’ve also got Car­di­nal Belli­ni (Stan­ley Tuc­ci), the ultra-liberal’s choice but who’s reluc­tant to accept the gig. And then there’s Car­di­nal Ben­itez (Car­los Diehz) rep­re­sent­ing Kab­ul, whose pres­ence is dis­cov­ered mere hours before the con­clave is set to begin.

The sto­ry is adapt­ed from a 2016 Thomas Har­ris pot­boil­er, and while it deliv­ers on awk­ward set-tos and inspir­ing mono­logues, it sad­ly has very lit­tle to say about the state of the mod­ern church. Com­plex doc­tri­nal thought is watered down to east-on-the-ear sound­bites, and the Lawrence char­ac­ter ends up being clos­er to a lov­able TV sleuth than a mem­ber of the holy order.

It’s all com­pe­tent­ly per­formed and exe­cut­ed, with loud booms of sound cued to each scene change as an attempt to ramp up the ten­sion, and lots of behind-the-head track­ing shots of car­di­nals anx­ious­ly pac­ing through cor­ri­dors and stair­ways. There’s a point about half-way in where things get quite sil­ly, and it’s fair­ly easy to spot where things are headed.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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