There’s a scene early on in Conclave, Edward Berger’s twisting, surprisingly pulpy thriller about the election of a new Pope, in which Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes, at the peak of his powers) addresses the assembled College of Cardinals with a speech prior to the first rounds of campaigning and voting that will determine the new Holy Father. One part of this speech — an appeal to liberal values, to diversity within the church — is seen as the reluctant Lawrence setting out his stall for the top job. But the other, much more interesting, part of the speech reflects his willingness to get into the weeds of something that seems antithetical to religious faith: doubt. Lawrence emphasizes the importance of uncertainty in a Pope, the idea that they might not be infallible; he asks for a Pope that “sins, asks forgiveness, and moves on,” someone who doubts. For Lawrence, if we didn’t doubt, then there would be no need for faith.
It’s this germ of doubt and uncertainty that animates the best parts of Conclave, and the most interesting bits of Fiennes’ performance. The irony behind his speech is that it was seen as launching a campaign, although Lawrence doesn’t want to be Pope because of a crisis of faith, an inability to articulate prayer. There are a few scenes where Lawrence is asked to pray and there’s a tension drawn out in them, in Lawrence’s silence and uncertainty. It’s in these moments, when Conclave focuses on the tensions inherent in faith rather than the drama of electioneering, that the film is at its most interesting. As a political drama, Conclave finds itself trapped in the context of the 2020s (although Robert Harris’ novel, from which the film is adapted, was released in 2016), and the film seems to contort itself into finding relevance in a political landscape that becomes increasingly defined by — to oversimplify slightly — liberalism and inclusion on one side of the spectrum, and a return to traditional, potentially harmful values on the other. This becomes abundantly clear in a hushed meeting between Lawrence and Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci), in which the latter declares: “This is a war. And you have to choose a side.”
On one side of the political debate for the Papacy are Lawrence and Bellini — neither of whom are seen as particularly desiring the job — while their more traditionalist, conservative opponents are Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow, in a performance of understated malice) and Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), the latter of whom has what might be called a “mask off” moment in the film’s final act, when the unsettling rumblings that have been occurring just outside the Conclave find themselves (quite literally) shattering the sanctuary that the Cardinals keep themselves in during this process. The politics are interesting, if a little surface level in their exploration, and give a propulsive tension to both the outcome of the election and the increasingly fraught dynamic between the Cardinals; the friendship between Bellini and Lawrence becomes particularly uncertain as rounds of voting continue and pillars of white smoke continue to shoot up into the skies around Vatican City. But, in the end, all of this can feel more like moving pieces on a chessboard than anything else, as if this is what the film is least interested in.
Even the visual language of Conclave finds itself more interested in the film’s inner workings — the nature of the Conclave itself, the silent, lingering presence of the Sisters (led by Isabella Rossellini, in one of those supporting turns that seems small until it isn’t), the dimly lit intimacy of their accommodation. One gets the impression watching Conclave of being able to witness something that feels forbidden, even sacred. When the camera keeps itself at a distance, watching the social and religious rituals of these men, Conclave is able to gesture toward the malleable messiness of faith itself; not only in the kind of reassurance and love it can provide, but also just how easy it is to weaponize that faith, to have it become a tool for violence and division. Berger’s film, then, is deeply unsubtle about where its own political sympathies lie, and the more time spent watching the film, the more it feels like this is a necessity because Conclave seems unable to reach a conclusion about the way it feels about faith. It might be that this is for the best, that to gesture toward certainty would undermine what makes the film most thematically interesting, even if it comes at the cost of a simplified approach to politics.
There’s a scene in the film’s final act, though, that comes close to marrying the two wolves in Conclave (political thriller and crisis-of-faith drama). To reveal too much about this development would defang one of these halves, but, in a somewhat messy way, it manages to create a kind of dialogue — stunting, well-intentioned, and a little shallow; which is to say, liberal — on what faith says about politics and what politics says about faith. Ultimately, Conclave is a film that’s often at its best when it focuses on the uncertainties of sad men in dimly lit rooms, and maybe that’s why it seems to move in such uncertain ways when it attempts to step out from the cloistered world of the Conclave, and into the light.
DIRECTOR: Edward Berger; CAST: Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, Sergio Castellitto; DISTRIBUTOR: Focus Features; IN THEATERS: October 25; RUNTIME: 2 hr.
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