Conclave is the kind of movie that feels like a paperback thriller you’d buy at the airport, devour on the flight, and maybe leave on the seat for someone else to find. Directed by Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front), the film wraps its intrigue in high production values and a few excellent performances — chief among them that of Ralph Fiennes, who makes the film better than it is.
Fiennes plays Thomas Cardinal Lawrence, a decent man in the midst of a crisis of faith, navigating the Vatican’s political intrigues with the steady hand of an institutionalist. Lawrence is bent on preserving the ideals that originally drew him — and many others — to the Catholic Church, even as the scheming around him threatens to erode its integrity. Fiennes, presiding over the Vatican’s College of Cardinals, wears Lawrence’s doubt and quiet authority like a second skin throughout the film.
The story kicks off with the sudden death of the pope, soon thrusting the cardinals into a conclave where old alliances, buried scandals, and ambitions bubble to the surface. We’re quickly introduced to familiar archetypes: Bellini (Stanley Tucci, reminding us he deserves more roles), the noble liberal reformer who’s too pure for his own good; Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), the sinister conservative, who might as well carry a flashing red sign that blinks “BAD GUY”; and Tremblay (John Lithgow, devilish as ever), working every angle with sly precision.
Berger is sophisticated enough to understand that, in the year of our Lord 2024, no one is surprised that purportedly godly men commit ungodly acts. The problem with the set-up isn’t so much that we’ve seen these characters before — in The American President, The West Wing, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington — it’s that even idealists are schemers at heart. Does anyone really believe that hardened power players experience epiphanies because a Sorkinesque speech appeals to their better angels? Please.
If the film’s politics feel naïve, its aesthetics operate on a higher plane, like a humble sandwich that’s elevated by a drizzle of truffle aioli. Berger crafts an atmosphere of ceremonial grandeur, where every gilded ceiling and ornate chamber exudes baroque splendor. Stéphane Fontaine’s cinematography echoes the poised elegance of Bertolucci’s The Conformist, lending a sense of both spectacle and enigma to the spaces where faith and ambition march side by side. Volker Bertelmann’s score deepens the tension with subtle, insistent rhythms. Combined, the music and photography give the film a gravitas that holds your attention, even when the narrative treads familiar ground.
Conclave moves briskly, keeping you on the edge of your seat with a steady drip of revelations and double-crosses. But as entertaining as it is, the film doesn’t quite know what to do with its more complex themes. You would think that a director who masterfully led us to empathize with a German soldier trapped in the brutal trenches of World War I could bring some nuance to conservative Catholicism. Yet here, Latin Mass is reduced to a relic, and its champion a mustache-twirling bigot. Isabella Rossellini, as Sister Agnes, serves as a crucial foil to the film’s menacing men, though, ironically, despite the film’s progressive politics, her character isn’t given much more to do.
Berger touches on issues like interfaith tension, clerical hypocrisy, and redemption, but the film treats them more as narrative devices than serious philosophical inquiries. The plot’s final twist — a meditation on the clash between relativism and objective truth — is as provocative as it is hastily delivered. Without spoiling it, let’s just say the parting message about embracing ambiguity feels more like a modern twist tacked on at the last minute — a wink at contemporary sensibilities rather than a natural outgrowth of the previous hour and 45 minutes. If the parting message is that we should question everything, including the film we just saw, fine — but even so, it comes across more like a screenwriting gimmick than a natural thematic conclusion.
Still, there’s something satisfying about Conclave’s slickness. Fontaine and Bertelmann’s artistry, the meticulous production design, and the performances make it an enjoyable watch. The film keeps you invested through every twist and turn. As far as thrillers go, it’s a fine entry — elegant, engaging, and tightly paced — but it could have been a great one had it approached its politics with more nuance and political maturity.