“Conclave” Is a Mild Thriller About a Tense Papal Election

A reformist Pope who boldly leads the Catholic Church into controversial changes should be played by an actor of commanding presence. In “Conclave,” there is such a Pope—he’s seen early in the film and he’s the very cause of the drama—but he’s played by an actor, Bruno Novelli, with no other credits and no exceptional screen aura. The role is a very difficult one: when the action begins, that Pope is dead, and the actor has nothing to do but lie still. All the more reason that this character, who, even in death, exerts a powerful grip over his followers and allies, should be played by an international star of irrepressible charisma—a quality with religious connotations—so that the very sight of him, however brief, inspires awe.

This might seem a small matter of casting, but it typifies what this movie lacks. Its plot is as clever as its imagination is stolid, its subjects are as serious as its approach to them is bland. Adapted from a novel by Robert Harris, “Conclave” is a talk-driven thriller that takes place in the Vatican as the College of Cardinals assembles to elect a new Pope. The management of the papal election falls to Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the reform-minded Dean of the College of Cardinals, who is also a close friend of the late Pope’s close associate and Secretary of State, Cardinal Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci), a tart-tongued liberal of high principle and the natural successor to the papacy. But other cardinals have been politicking for the office, including a Nigerian cardinal, Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), whose hostility to homosexuality rankles the liberals; Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), an open reactionary who inveighs loudly against modern freedoms and wants to restore the Latin Mass; and Joseph Tremblay (John Lithgow), the late Pope’s chosen Camerlengo, or chamberlain, a seemingly evenhanded bureaucrat who, in fulfilling his responsibility for announcing the death of the Pope, has done so in ways that arouse suspicion.

As a result of Lawrence’s reformist preferences and personal loyalties, his management of the process proves to be more than merely ceremonial or administrative. The drama is anchored by the voting itself—the elaborate formalities with which the cardinal electors, of whom (in real life) there are a hundred and twenty-one, cast their ballots, requiring a two-thirds vote to yield a winner. The voting takes place in the titular conclave, the etymology of which means “with a key” and suggests the circumstances under which the election is held. The cardinals are secluded in hotel-like quarters in the Vatican and sequestered like jurors in newsy trials—insulated from all outside media. The likeliest candidates, none of whom prevails on the widely split first ballot, actively campaign, and Lawrence finds himself enmeshed in politicking, seeking first to promote Bellini and then, as support for Bellini dwindles, to form a coalition to keep Tedesco out.

The drama pivots on conflicts between sworn duties and moral responsibilities, between adherence to rules and fidelity to a higher law. As with many elections, this one has its own versions of October surprises, and its looming scandals involve the same things that roil secular politics—sex and money. The difference is that, far from being encouraged to bring such matters to light, Lawrence is bound by the media insulation of the conclave not to investigate the basis of suspicions. But hints of trouble reach as far as the nuns who staff the Vatican; one in particular (played by Isabella Rossellini) is paying close attention. There’s another surprise when a new cardinal whom nobody knew about, Vincent Benitez (Carlos Diehz), shows up at the last minute. Benitez is the Archbishop of Kabul, and the late Pope had appointed him in pectore—that is, in secret—a tactic likely used to protect him from persecution. He bears a letter of unimpeachable authority attesting to his nomination, and his mysterious presence becomes a subject of his colleagues’ increasing fascination.

In filming “Conclave,” Edward Berger (working with a script by Peter Straughan) offers piquant glances at the elaborate Vatican rituals, such as the sealing of the late Pope’s door with wax, the old-fashioned paper votes placed on a plate and tipped into a receptacle, and the mechanics of generating white and black smoke as a signal to Vatican-watchers. Berger clearly relishes displaying the material and procedural arcana of the Holy See, along with the Vatican’s magnificent settings, but he does so with an ahistorical incuriosity—with the anecdotal picturesqueness of a travelogue. The drama, of course, hinges on how all the coalitions and the maneuvers will shake out and who will ultimately be elected. The inconclusive first ballot hints at the many rounds that will be needed. And, even though anyone who has seen “Twelve Angry Men” knows how such a plot works, the suspense that arises as the backroom intrigues grow ever more ferocious and the schemes ever bolder is effective, if simplistic.

The filmmaking retains a steady, methodical placidity throughout—to match the plainness of everything but the suspense. Berger delights in showing the ordinariness of the cardinals’ extraordinary duties, in presenting the incense-shrouded mysteries of religion as a professionalized and rigorously practical realm, whose highest representatives are as hard-nosed and worldly as secular politicians. This mild skepticism, however, is in conflict with the story itself, which ultimately suggests—somewhat deferentially—that some spiritual illumination guides those who’ve made souls their business. This noteworthy assertion makes it all the more disheartening that, in a movie involving coalition-building and the changing of hearts and minds, hardly any of the run time is devoted to discussions among the many cardinals, outside the inner circle of officers and candidates, regarding the decisions at hand and what they think about them.

Even more crucial, the narrative’s creamy charm neuters the greater matters that the movie evokes: crises of faith. It’s the smoldering core of the action, disclosed in a few beats of dialogue, and enfolded in a homily—and more than one character, the movie suggests, may be afflicted by such fundamental doubts. The raw material of “Conclave” approaches the grandeur of the classic religious cinema, whether the spiritual severity of Dreyer or Rossellini or Bergman, or the anticlerical fury of Buñuel or Pasolini, but Berger films like a tourist. The superficial treatment of the movie’s sterner themes doesn’t help its splendid cast. Fiennes and Tucci, in particular, spin dialogue with athletic deftness, but they and the rest of the cast are burdened with embodying stock characters who exist only through a salient trait or two. Instead of rising to the awe-inspiring heights of their settings, the refinement of the performances is narrowed to monotony. ♦