I'm aware of what simony is, thank you.

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 films of 2024

#16 :  Conclave

Having drawn broad comparisons to Gossip Girl set within the Vatican’s secluded interiors, Conclave is a delectable power-grab drama carried by some seriously thespy performances. A heated election to determine who will replace the recently-deceased Pope is endearing enough, but filmmaker Edward Berger – following up on his multi-Oscar-winning All Quiet On The Western Front – also plunges us into the ornate, disciplined and melodramatic world of the College Of Cardinals. There is simple pleasure to be found in watching one religious loiterer vaping between meetings, or his fellow cardinal scrolling on his smartphone while taking a break from official business, all within the sombre, serious tone of the movie. Steering us through the morally murky politics of his conclave is Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence, a rapidly unravelling hot mess with a habit of switching into seamless Latin while bouncing off of rapturous performances from Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini. Entertaining down the last robe swish. XOXO, The Pope.

This is an interesting one - generally I'd have said there was no chance of me watching it, because it seems like a very dry subject. However, it's got great reviews and eight Oscar nominations including best picture, actor and supporting actress - and, somewhat unsurprisingly, best costume design. So I'm actually quite intrigued to watch it now.

The film follows Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) as he organises the conclave to select the next Pope following the death of the previous one. It's all very cloak and dagger - tensely yet enjoyably so. It might have a religious setting, but it's much more of a political thriller with all candidates having different views and standing for alternative paths forward for the party - sorry, Church. And of course, stuff goes on which casts a different light on various people throughout the film. And that's probably all you need to know really.

It's an interesting choice of environment for a film because we all know what a priest does without really knowing what it involves beyond the banging about God bit (it's possible I could be simplifying matters here somewhat) - and when it comes to picking a new Pope, none of us have the faintest idea what it involves. The film does a good job of (allegedly) lifting the lid on the secrecy whilst also focussing on the mundanity and weaknesses of normal human existence which affect the cardinals as much as (or, in this case, more than) the rest of us.

Ralph does an excellent job here displaying both human frailty and divine responsibility - he's very much the centre of the film and he carries it well. He's well supported by Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Sergio Castellito and Lucian Msamati as other cardinals - Lucian is particularly good, even if he only really has one scene of consequence. 

Isabella Rossellini has an interesting role - she's in the film from the beginning, but rarely seen and you're given very few clues as to what her role is for the first hour. She also displays a surprising lack of facial movement considering she's an Academy Award nominee, but I guess it's what the role calls for. And finally, Carlos Diehz is also excellent in a very enigmatic role - he brings an interesting and unexpected outsider perspective to the closed shop.

It's obviously beautiful to look at - with those locations and costumes, how could it not be?  But it really is a feast for the eyes and there's been a lot of work gone into making it look so fine. It's also got a great score - and that's not something I normally notice, so it must have been good.

As a random side note, this is the third ostensibly English but actually multi-lingual film I've seen in the past couple of months - with Irish, Osage and Latin making quite the combination of second languages which require the use of subtitles.

However, I do have a couple of quibbles - firstly, it all feels a bit X-Factor-ish, with "contestants" being voted off one-by-one for various reasons - although interestingly I learned that the ballot doesn't actually work that way because no-one is ever dropped from the list of candidates, so in theory the voting could go on forever. I also didn't like the daft twist at the end - I appreciate they wanted to give us a "gotcha" but it's not what I'd have gone for and just felt pointless, but it was somewhat tacked on, so didn't (for me) ruin everything that had gone before.

Despite my quibbles, in the main I thoroughly enjoyed this - it ramps up the tension nicely and Ralph gives a great central performance amongst a sea of act-ors all of whom are looking to out-thesp each other. If you want to watch it, it's available to rent in all the usual places but I'd have to say it's ridiculously expensive to do so, so you might want to wait for a couple of weeks!

#17 - A most peculiar film