Conclave is a papal thriller based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris and it stars a magnificent Ralph Fiennes. If he doesn’t win an Oscar I’ll eat my hat and also yours. Luckily, the film is also well written, smart, taut and visually stunning. You’d think the costume designer (Lisy Christl) wouldn’t find too much to play with, given it’s all vestments and cassocks, but they are gorgeous. The cardinals can be catty and bitchy and deceptive but I will say this for them: they know how to work red – and those little caps.
The cardinals can be catty and bitchy but I will say this for them: they know how to work red
The film is directed by Edward Berger (All Quiet On The Western Front) from a screenplay by Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the 2011 film version) and begins with the death of the sitting Pope. More than 100 cardinals must now gather to choose a new one. Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes), as dean of the college of cardinals, must oversee the votes. The main candidates are: Tremblay (John Lithgow), a Canadian moderate, Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), an Italian reactionary conservative, Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), who is Nigerian and would be good for diversity but is violently anti-gay, and Bellini, an American liberal. He is played by Stanley Tucci, who may or may not prefer to be at home making arancini balls. (Is it just me or is his whole cooking shtick beginning to get in the way of his performances?) There is also a wild card. This is Benitez (Carlos Diehz), a Mexican who had been elevated to an archbishop by the late pope in pectore. That is, in secret. No one had known of his existence until now.
They are all sequestered from the outside world and must remain claustrophobically confined in the Vatican until a new pope is chosen.
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