Almost eight years ago (January 29, 2017), I posted a review of Conclave, a book by British novelist Robert Harris, noted for his fictionalized accounts of power and its corruptions. That novel is now a movie. Thanks largely to its impressive cast and beautiful filming, Conclave (the movie) is getting lots of well deserved attention and pre-Oscar speculation. The cast includes Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence, Dean of the Sacred College and thus the one tasked to manage the Conclave, through whom we experience most of the tension in the film, Stanley Tucci as Cardinal Bellini, Lawrence's friend and leader of the "progressive" faction, Sergio Castellito as Cardinal Tedesco, the leader of the "conservative" faction, Lucian Msamati as Cardinal Adeyemi, the African papabile (until he isn't anymore), John LIthgow as Cardinal Tremblay, another particularly ambitious and problematic contender, Carlos Diehz as Cardinal Benitez, the mystery cardinal, and Isabella Rossellini as Sister Agnes, who is in charge of the domestic arrangements for the Conclave.
To reprise some of what I said about the book that applies also to the film, the conflicts and divisions among the cardinals are what we might expect. They present a plausible portrayal of current conflicts and divisions in the contemporary Church, filtered here through the personal ambitions and rivalries of different cardinals participating in the conclave. The unexpected arrival of a hitherto unknown cardinal (named by the deceased pope in pectore) predictably at first gives the novel a kind of vaguely Shoes of the Fisherman feel, which creates a certain expectation of how it will end, an expectation that persists, despite all the twists and turns and personal ups and downs of the plot And, as different papabili rise and fall in the balloting and are eventually eliminated by a cleverly constructed series of personal scandals and various political machinations that punctuate the otherwise routine sequence of (beautifully portrayed) ritual ballots, the film does indeed seem to set us up for a predictable outcome. Then comes a shocking and radically challenging finale which no one, no matter how attentive to contemporary ecclesiastical conflicts, would likely have expected (and which I will not reveal lest I spoil the film for anyone).
