4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Apr 21, 2025 02:14 PM IST
If God lies in the details, the papacy follows close behind. The architecture of the great Catholic Church rests on not just the grey and grim men and women floating down the Vatican corridors in their robes. It rests above all on tradition.
And Conclave, based on a bestseller by Richard Harris by the same name and riding on eight Oscar nominations, stands above all on ceremony. The selection of a new Pope is not a matter to be trifled with, and Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) takes his job of overseeing the Conclave to select the new occupant of the Throne of the Holy See, as the Dean of the College of Cardinals, with utmost seriousness indeed.
Fiennes himself is not an actor given to frivolity, and in his hands, Lawrence is a picture of a man burdened by duty, in the service of none other than God, even if it is a task he takes up reluctantly. Lawrence has lately been having his doubts regarding the Church – not his faith, though – and had expressed the same to the Pope, who would not let him resign as Dean.
The said Pope, deceased of a heart attack, was clearly a much-loved man among this set of Cardinals and Sisters. Only a few, like Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), in contention to replace him, are uncomfortable with the “liberal” direction in which the late Pope had been taking the Church. Of Tedesco’s rivals, Tremblay (John Lithgow) wears his ambition on his wide Cassock sleeves, not a good look for a Pope; Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati) seems set to become the first African American to hold the post; and Bellini (Stanley Tucci) is the only one likely to take forward the last Pope’s opening up of the Church.
Lawrence insists he has no ambitions of his own. And clearly, and not surprisingly given Conclave’s steadfast political correctness, favours Bellini.
Adapted by Peter Straughan for the screen, Conclave is set over four-odd tense days in which the Cardinals meet to select the new Pope, the scheming and machinations that God’s chosen ones can’t desist from, and the scandals that tumble out of rickety closets in which is otherwise a very cold-marble, stark and angular Vatican, with dark rooms.
However, while the ensemble cast is unerringly excellent, no schemes or scandals are big enough to derail what is God’s work. And that is the big drawback of Conclave, where every knot of those priestly robes is undone precisely in the manner expected.
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Blasts happen outside and kill people, while inside they manifest as signs of something momentous. Light falls at an angle of significance, while a wind rustles up just when a confused Lawrence is looking for guidance.
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Before he guides the flock to vote for the Pope, Lawrence gives a great speech. The biggest sin, he says, is “certainty”. “Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end… Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.”
The gathered Cardinals are not too comfortable about all this talk of doubt and mystery. In the long run, neither does the film want to go too far down that road. When its one real mystery does unveil itself, it is resolved too patly to test faith.
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Conclave movie cast: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati, Sergio Castellitto, Isabella Rossellini
Conclave movie director: Edward Berger
Conclave movie rating: 3.5 stars
Conclave is set over four-odd tense days in which the Cardinals meet to select the new Pope.