Conclave doesn’t just feel like an Agatha Christie mystery — it also begins like one. The film’s opening moments follow its beleaguered protagonist, Thomas Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), as he hurriedly makes his way through the streets of Rome. When he finally arrives at his destination, he is shocked and saddened to discover multiple cardinals gathered around the body of the newly dead pope. Arrangements are quickly made for Lawrence, Dean of the College of Cardinals, to lead and oversee a papal conclave to elect his former superior’s replacement.
The film, in other words, immediately introduces several of the same basic elements as a Christie thriller — namely, a sudden and tragic death and a gathering of characters in one single, contained location. It isn’t long before Lawrence’s task of managing the Church’s conclave starts to grow even more complicated. In fact, he quickly finds himself at the center of a conspiratorial web of lies, cover-ups, and unspoken politics between he and his fellow cardinals that forces him to take a more active role in the selection of the new pope than he would like.
A twisty, immersive mystery
Unlike a lot of the iconic mysteries that it may both intentionally and unintentionally call to mind, Conclave isn’t centered around questions of murder or multiple shocking deaths. The pope’s passing hangs over the film, and both Lawrence and Bellini (Stanley Tucci), his closest friend among his fellow cardinals, find themselves haunted by their mentor’s legacy. However, the mysteries that Lawrence must try to solve ultimately have more to do with content of character than any leftover murder weapons. Tasked with managing the election of one of the world’s most powerful religious figures, Lawrence must determine whether or not any of the position’s most-liked candidates have done anything in secret that would make them particularly unfitting of the papacy.
These candidates include Bellini, a staunch American liberal; Tremblay (John Lithgow), an ambitious Canadian conservative; Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a reactionary Italian right-winger; and Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), a Nigerian cardinal whose views range from progressive to distressingly regressive. Every one of these characters proves themselves in various ways to be very different men than Lawrence originally believed. The conclave’s immensely fragile status quo is, meanwhile, further upset early in the film’s runtime by the arrival of Benitez (Carlos Diehz), a Mexican stationed in Afghanistan who has the paperwork necessary to prove that he was secretly made a cardinal some time ago by the former pope.
Conclave unfurls its various mysteries with a methodical, patient hand. All is Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger and screenwriter Peter Straughan go out of their way to first immerse viewers in the methods, practices, and competing beliefs of Conclave‘s purposefully insular world before revealing any of their biggest twists. This makes the film’s entire mystery plot far more effective. The suffocating, claustrophobic nature of the conclave itself is communicated with beautiful technical precision on the parts of Berger and cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine, who don’t visually shy away from the majesty of the thriller’s locations, but still fill it with intimate close-ups and shadowy compositions.
As a result, Conclave‘s mood ends up resembling that of a paranoid ’70s thriller and, therefore, one that justifies the hushed, urgent tone that dominates many of its biggest conversations, revelations, and confrontations. The film is, despite its somewhat stale-seeming premise, an often gripping and immersive thriller. It is a psychological and political chess match between Lawrence and the men who surround him, and where Conclave truly succeeds is in how effectively it communicates the growing pressure its protagonist feels to lead the church toward its best potential future. At times, said pressure feels overwhelming and self-imposed; other times, it feels like a divinely appointed driving force.
A commanding lead performance
As is the case with any great, Christie-esque thriller, Conclave features an impressive and capable ensemble of actors. Tucci, Lithgow, and Msamati, in particular, turn in deeply felt, riveting supporting performances, and they each do a lot with the sometimes little that they are given. However, Conclave would be nothing without Fiennes. The actor’s performance is the dramatic anchor that the thriller needs. He grounds the film at all times in identifiable, relatable emotions and fears, and we learn everything we need to know about Lawrence’s ongoing crisis of faith by simply seeing how Fiennes seems to hunch and recede into his mind in the moments when no one else is around him. It’s been an unfortunately long time since a film has reminded us just how effortlessly Fiennes is able to fill up a cinematic frame, but Conclave repeatedly does just that over the course of its two hours.
Fiennes’ performance is the reason to seek out Conclave. His work in the film is dense and yet not showy; commanding and yet soft-spoken. Conclave itself is at its best when it is reflecting the quiet intensity of its lead, which it does for most of its runtime. There are questions to be asked about how well the film lands its final, game-changing twist, and it is undoubtedly a bit disappointing to see Conclave resort to a sudden instance of uncharacteristically bombastic spectacle in order to buy itself the necessary time for its last section. While not all of the film’s twists feel as profound as they should, though, Conclave is never anything but absolutely gripping, and that is thanks in no small part to Fiennes’ lead performance. It’s one of the best any actor has given so far this year.
Conclave is now playing in theaters.