My Review of Conclave (2024)

 

Written by Peter Straughan

Directed by Edward Berger 

Benitez: "The church is not the past. It is what we do next."

I'm doing my best to get to nearly all of the potential Oscar nominated movies before the event itself and on that list included this political thriller. Yes, let's look into the Vatican, shall we?

Notably, let's look into the election of the next Pope through a papal conclave following the death of the pope at the start of the movie. You've got the College of Cardinals, under the leadership of British Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes). They've gathered to elect his successor. A task that would make up this film with different candidates to succeed the late Pope.

The first candidate being Lawrence himself who spent a great portion of the movie denying that he even wanted to the job, due to his faith wavering. Lawrence was more or less the main protagonist of the movie itself and he's predominantly a good man wanting to do the right thing throughout.

The other candidates included a similarly morally upstanding Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci). He's somewhat more progressive than the other candidates, being very pro women and LGBT community but also came across as more pragmatic compared to Lawrence. He had no problem in also confronting the latter's wavering stance towards his faith.

Then there was Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), whose candidacy came into potential following the reveal of a past indiscretion with a nun, thanks to the more tactical and moderate Joseph Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow). Tremblay certainly wasn't above playing dirty, even though the late Pope had demanded his resignation prior to his death. That also left the more traditionalist Goffredo Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) as another would be successor.

Among the vying to be the next Pope and the somewhat expected outcome (if you've read the book), there were two other characters who got to shine in this movie. Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini) worked well as a bit of a foil to Lawrence while Vincent Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz) own backstory was nicely explored and gave some great context following the newly elected Pope.

- The candidates represented different places - Bellini with Italy, Adeyemi with Nigeria, Tremblay with Canada and Benitez with Mexico/Afghanistan. Lawrence was British.

- The movie is based on the 2005 book of the same name by Robert Harris. 

- Standout music: Capella Musicale Pontificia Sistina, Massimo Palombella's version of Allegri: Miserere.

- Chronology: The movie was set over the course of three days, resulting in the newly elected pope.

Conclave certainly managed to be an intriguing and nicely nuanced look into the next Pope. The performances from everyone are particularly great but I have to give a special mention to Carlos Diehz in particular.

Rating: 8 out of 10