Conclave
An election as a battle for the soul of the Catholic Church.
A homily should be a simple thing. “Inoffensive!” quips Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), when he learns that Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is writing one. Lawrence’s homily is to be delivered to the other cardinals of the Catholic Church after the death of the pope, and he begins with the inoffensive subject matter they expect: comfort, reassurance, and the encouragement of tradition. Then he veers off script. “Let us pray for a new pope who doubts, sins, asks for forgiveness, and carries on,” he concludes. When he’s done speaking, we see the blank look of shock on the faces of the other cardinals. Outside, a nun (Isabella Rosellini) sits against an outer wall and listens, her thumb brushing the cross-shaped wedding ring she wears as part of her vows, the threat of a smile on her lips.
Cardinal Lawrence has shoulders heavy with responsibility; he’s the Dean of the College of Cardinals, tasked with running the conclave to elect a new pope. He’s responsible for the logistics of calling the conclave, ensuring the cardinals remain sequestered, and serving as the face of the Holy See until the next pope is elected. Outside of his official duties, Lawrence feels a responsibility to balance his own duties against an array of allegiances throughout the College. Fiennes plays the character with a resolute weariness: Lawrence does not want this responsibility but is duty-bound to see it through. The future of the Catholic Church hangs in the balance. So does Lawrence’s own faith: even before the pope’s death, he’s been having trouble praying.
Director Edward Berger treats the subject matter with a serious touch that never slides into ponderousness. Part of this is because of the relative simplicity of the production design, balanced against the lush details in the costuming: cold marble and bare walls as a backdrop for the flourish of rich embroidery and heavy fabric. Other concrete details surface in brief insert shots: footworn cobblestones under a carpet of discarded cigarettes, the faces of nuns framed by bare stucco walls, the different styles of cross that each cardinal wears. The film embodies the austerity of the demands of the faith under the weight of time and tradition. Lawrence’s own crisis, underlined by these additional details, serves as a microcosm of the Church, struggling against itself as it decides whether to progress or return to some past time.
And yet the film is almost fun: Conclave keeps up the momentum even as it twists itself through a tightly winding plot. The cast, for their part, relish their line deliveries. The script (adapted by Peter Straughan from the 2016 book by Robert Harris) loves language, working in wordplay from Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and Yoruba. At one point, Isabella Rossellini performs a curtsey that might as well be a well-deserved slap in the face. There’s joy to be had here, even if it’s a rueful laugh in recognition that, despite its potboiler plot, Conclave takes the reality of organized religion seriously.
Lightness doesn’t equal frivolity; each successive turn carries a weight to it, because we understand the characters and the stakes of their beliefs. Of particular note is Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a frontrunner for the papacy, who wields both a vape pen and his ability to condemn others with a charismatic haughtiness. The promise of power is compelling and repellent in equal measure. If elected, Tedesco will do his best to roll back the church to pre–Vatican II. Other candidates for the papacy have more progressive ideals but can’t seem to coalesce into a united front.
The conflict within the walls of the Vatican at times seems to be a battle for the very soul of the Church. The cardinals have been sequestered from the outside world in an attempt to keep their decision free from outside influence, but the needs of the world outside insist upon being known anyway. There’s unrest in Rome and elsewhere, and there will continue to be even if the Church ignores it for a time. When the answer comes, it comes laden with uncertainty: the knowledge that the end of the election is not the end of the world nor the end of the fight. One cardinal, speaking to the rest, asserts that the Church is not tradition, walls, or rituals. “The Church is what we do next,” he says. You can put up your guard, but sooner or later, the light will stream in.—Sarah Welch-Larson
★★★★
Conclave is in theaters nationwide now.