You wouldn’t think it would be possible to make a drama about the ascendancy to popehood as entertaining – nay, as deliriously fun – as this. Full of enough catty backstabbing to fulfill any reality TV viewer, Conclave might, on paper, sound like a dry, solemn film about men in red caps and grandiose Catholic rooms, but in practice it is gossipy, thrilling, and makes the Machiavellian moves of Succession look like child’s play.
Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes, in fine form as the only half-decent man in a room of snakes) is, in the wake of the last pope’s death, lobbying for his friend Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) for the role. Bellini is relatively progressive, especially in comparison to Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellito), a frighteningly hard-faced ideologue whose views on women’s bodies and homosexuality place him firmly in the previous century. A surprise, however, comes in the form of Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz), an emissary who has a somewhat enigmatic past abroad as Cardinal of Kabul. It turns out the late pope saw him as a worthy spiritual successor, giving him unexpected influence on the conclave.
Possible candidates for the papacy fall like dominoes as spies are sent out for scandal-hunting and new controversies are covertly – and then viciously – wielded against one another, in a most un-Christian manner. Meanwhile, the women of the film are forced to watch from the sidelines as the men muck things up – particularly the imperious, exasperated Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini), who notices every misstep and knows how to deploy her influence quietly.
With such firm and dogmatic Catholic beliefs, it’s easy for these men to point fingers at one another for moral turpitude, and they must disguise any open ambitions for power in polite backroom deals. It’s the perfect setting for cloak-and-dagger behaviour, and the sheer bitchiness in Conclave is a powerful depiction of human foibles even in the most spiritual of settings. There’s a surprise conclusion to the film that will be sure to drop jaws, but it’s smarter than a cheap plot twist. Instead, it begs questions about the march towards progress that the Church only sometimes seems to want to be on. Lawrence is dragged in to the mire of this intrigue and left doubtful about his vocation as a result.
If, like me, you’re a lapsed Catholic with some vague interest in how the modern papacy navigates the contemporary world despite its seemingly ancient attitudes, Conclave delivers. Director Edward Berger faithfully adapts its source novel about the election process, and the script is a funny and illuminating insight in to how byzantine and old-school the inner workings remain. (Peter Straughan, the talented screenwriter of the 2011 Tinker Tailor adaptation, is responsible.) But you don’t have to profess any special interest in the subject to have a fantastic time at the cinema with Conclave, which is part political thriller, part catfight, and utterly compelling.