OUT NOW: Conclave (Edward Berger, 2024)

The pope is dead.

It falls to Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) to oversee the conclave to elect his successor.

Already riddled with self-doubt about his vocation, Lawrence finds himself contending with factional infighting, conspiracy and secrets which might shake the Catholic Church to its foundation.

Conclave is a thriller about political power - the factional infighting, the weighing of different interests.

Considering the film is largely people in rooms, I was impressed at how dynamic and exciting it was.

Based on a novel by Robert Harris, Conclave plays like a great beach read - starting with a great hook and slowly introducing a series of escalating threats that our flawed protagonist seems ill-equipped to thwart.

I love a locked-room mystery and this is a good one.

The fact that it manages to raise the stakes without introducing a gun and only minimal violence (which almost plays like a reprieve from the mind games). 

Taking place in the backrooms of power, Conclave is about stripping aside the idealism from the pursuit of power.

This is a high stakes game, where ideals get tossed aside in favour of hard-headed realpolitik.

Our protagonist tries to preserve a sense of decorum, tradition, and objectivity.

He ultimately is forced to realise that this is a fiction.

The scene of Laurence breaking the seal on the dead pontiff’s chamber is the film’s crossing of the Rubicon.

The actual act is shot from multiple angles, treating this moment as a crossed line.

Beyond this point, all attempts to maintain proceedings are a pretence.  

Leaving the movie, I had only one thought. 

This is great, but watching it on the cusp of a second Trump presidency, and with facism seemingly encouraged around the world, it felt almost naive.

Factional infighting and ideological struggles within institutions will never go away, but Conclave feels reflective of a philosophy and a strategy that has reached its endpoint

In the film, the rabidly conservative cardinal is repelled, and the collective makes a wiser choice than the “lesser evil” strategy the film has been focused upon. .

A film with such clarity about the way politics works, and the way institutions operate, is ultimately an appeal to faith - if not in the almighty, then in the collective will of people to make the right choice.

Well-acted, very funny and carrying its meaty themes with a deft touch, Conclave is a fun time.

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