Conclave, although technically a movie about cardinals selecting a new pope, feels more like a political thriller, than a film based on a religious tradition. It is impeccably put together, and it is easily one of the best films of the year due to its ability to combine a great score, beautiful imagery, and stellar acting performances. It is a great follow up to All Quiet on the Western Front from director Edward Berger. The movie has great pacing and stays interesting throughout its two-hour run time.
The movie starts with the death of the pope, so all the cardinals from around the world start to flock to Vatican City, so that they can vote for the new pope. To be elected as the new pope, the victor needs to receive two thirds of the vote, which was 72 votes, so there are 108 cardinals. When they get there, groups immediately start to form. Mostly they segregate themselves based off the language they speak, but there was also segregation based off of their beliefs. There were those had more conservative views for the direction of the church that wanted to bring it back to more traditional beliefs, and there were those that had more liberal beliefs, and they are more in line with the way that the catholic church had been moving, and this was in accordance with the previous pope, they were less strict.
The first few votes there were three main candidates receiving votes, and there were two others that received more than one vote, so they got some recognition. The main character in the story was Lawerence, and he was basically in charge of the proceedings, and he had different people from whom he was receiving information from outside of the conclave. This was information he was not necessarily supposed to be receiving based off being in the conclave, but it was also pertinent to the election, and when he shared this information, he quickly garnered enemies, and it also turn the election on its head.
Going into this movie, I had no real background knowledge on what it was supposed to be about. To be honest given the time of year it was coming out and the religious depiction on the poster, I just assumed it was going to be a scary movie, but then I listened to The Big Picture, and Sean Fennessy had Conclave in his ten predicted best picture nominees, and then my dad told me that he was interested in seeing it, so I knew it was not a scary movie.
Before the movie started, I looked up who the director was, and when I saw it was Edward Berger the director of All Quiet on the Western Front, which came out a couple years ago, I got more excited. Sadly that was a movie that I had to watch on Netflix despite it demanding to be seen on a big screen due to its masterful war scenes with great sound and score. Thankfully similar compliments can be said about Conclave, but this time I was able to see it on the big screen.
The part of this movie that stuck out the most to me was the score. It is an orchestral score, but when it is present, they do not shy away from it. I can even hear it pounding in my head right now as I write this. It is so beautiful, especially when it crescendos, and it plays an essential role in the pacing of this movie. Obviously, there is no real action in this film. It is mostly just people talking, walking, writing, and occasionally snooping, but the score makes it so that it never feels slow. It made my heart pound, and it added importance to the events that were going on.
It is also impossible to watch this and not to think about the impending election. Although the issues that the cardinals are running on are not exact replicas of the Democrat and Republican party, but there are cross overs. The fact that these were religious leaders, but they were being so cutthroat, made it seem more appalling. Sadly, at this point, politics is more about tearing the other person down than standing up for what is best. So it was sad to see that the same could be said for the church, a place where people are supposed to get along and support each other. I know this was a fictional representation, but I imagine it to be accurate. The other cardinals were even doing hit jobs on each other, where they would dig up dirt on each other, so that they could have less competition. Not what you would expect from brothers in Christ.
The movie also heavily focused on the idea of the best leader is the one that does not want it. Politics has become so ego centric. It is all about how I am better, and this person is terrible. There is not an ounce of humbleness. The idea of the reluctant leader is a prevalent one in storytelling, especially in fantasy story telling. Two of the more famous examples are Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker. Neither initially wanted to take their claims as the chosen ones and pushed against it, but ultimately, they accepted their appointed role and lead their groups to success. Typically those chasing power at all costs are those looking to abuse the power when they get it.
Sadly, this idea of the reluctant leader is almost impossible to implement into the real world of politics. It can happen in a conclave of cardinals where there is a finite pool of potential leaders, where everyone knows everyone, or at least they could easily know everyone, but in our world of politics this would be almost impossible. There is no way that a reluctant leader could ever get enough support. People would just have to decide to vote for some random representative from a place like Montana who did not want to even be a representative, but politics is so cut throat now, that a person like that probably does not even exist anymore.
There is only one aspect of the movie that I did not like, and that was at times, it felt too much like a political thriller, like they tried to make it feel like Lawerence was this big spy, almost like a Sherlock Holmes character solving a mystery, and they added in some explosions as well, which created some division, but ultimately the explosions felt inconsequential. They did not need the spy material and explosions to make this movie interesting, just blasting the fast pace unnerving score behind it did that job well enough.
But even with that being said, I currently have this as the third best film of the year, and I believe that it will be a best picture nominee. I do not think it will win, but of course getting nominated is a big deal, and it will be Berger’s second nomination in the category. So I am excited to see what he keeps doing as a director. Also, the main actors in this movie did great. It was funny for Ralph Fiennes to be the main moral cardinal, because he was Voldemort, so he is such a good actor that he can literally play both ends of the spectrum. Someone who is the epitome of evil and someone who is the moral compass of a group of religious zealots. Stanley Tucci also did a great job. I gave this movie 4 stars, but it was close to 4.5, and I definitely recommend going to see it!
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