Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Sergio Castellito, Carlos Diehz, Lucian Msamati and Isabella Rossellini
Distributor: Focus Features
Runtime: 120 mins. Reviewed in Oct 2024
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan
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This film is concerned with the election of a successor to a deceased Pope. In thriller mode, it explores what influences candidates, who meet in Conclave to vote for a new Pope.
The film is based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Robert Harris. It is directed by Edward Berger, who guided the multi award-winning Oscar film, All Quiet on The Western Front (2022). It tells the story of Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Fiennes), Dean of the College of Cardinals, who has the task of organising the election of a new Pope after the present Pope dies. Cardinal Lawrence is privy to truths that could determine the future of the Church, but he also has the responsibility of preserving the secrecy of the Conclave.
In charge of the election of a new Pope, he knows that the candidate who eventually wins the ballot needs to be ‘innocent’ of any suspicions fellow Cardinals might raise, and is free from ‘mal-intent’.
As the political intrigue intensifies behind locked doors, Cardinal Lawrence feels the pressure to make known the secrets he is privy to. His experiences become a personal crisis of faith for him. In the way he chooses to preserve what he knows, he rises in power himself, and he gains votes he says he doesn’t want.
The candidates for election involve a powerful American cardinal (Lithgow), a rigidly conservative Cardinal Tedesco (Castellito), a liberal Cardinal Bellini (Tucci) whom Cardinal Lawrence would like to see victorious, a popular Nigerian candidate (Msamati) with a complex past, and an unknown cardinal who works in Kabul (Diehz). The film is told from Cardinal Lawrence’s perspective, and he has unlikely support in Sister Agnes (Rossellini), who, when exposed to the major impact of Vatican politics, decides to come forward.
The team assembled for this film is superb. The film finds humour and suspense in its fictionalised hunt for a new Pope, and the movie becomes a film that confronts realistic tensions in the Catholic Church. The film debates what a modern church should look like; what it needs to do to convince Catholics that there is a need for change; the issue of preserving clerical celibacy; and what the Church must do to hold onto its traditions in a changing world. It reserves its most complicated issue for its final moments, and concludes unexpectedly in a controversial way.
The film is guided knowingly by Berger, who, as director, gives an impressive account of the possible tensions surrounding the election of a Pope, and he expertly captures the look and feel of clerical church culture. Fiennes stands out as Cardinal Lawrence, who tries to control an outcome that he believes will shape the future of his Church.
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