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Is a Movie About Electing a Pope Allowed to Be This Entertaining?
Conclave combines the pulp velocity of a great airport read with the gravitas of high drama.
It solemnly depicts the ornate rituals around the death of the Pope — the ribbons placed across his door and fastened with melted red wax, the seals clipped off his rings, the constant prayers and the secretive mutterings — with only a slight nod to the sheer pointlessness of it all. And it’s interesting to learn that the Very Serious Men who elect popes scheme as effectively as the New York Film Critics Circle did when it voted (well-deserving) underdog Rachel Weisz best actress in 2012 to prevent front-runners Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence from getting the prize instead; or when the warring camps of Days of Heaven and Deer Hunter supporters at the National Society of Film Critics in 1978 famously fought each other to a standstill and allowed Bertrand Blier’s Get Out Your Handkerchiefs to sneak in and win Best Picture that year. Save maybe for the flamboyant Tedesco (a not very big role that Castellitto turns into a full, rollicking meal), they’re all lowered eyebrows and hushed whispers and collegial exchanges, soberly prostrating themselves before God and seeking His guidance…all the while quietly and viciously stabbing each other in the back.
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