‘Conclave’ review: Ralph Fiennes and friends battle it out on ‘top of the Popes’

Never mind Trump vs. Harris during the recent US election, the real dirt comes behind the closed doors of the Catholic Church in new movie Conclave. Based on the novel by Robert Harris, this highly satisfying drama-thriller follows what happens after the Pope dies of a sudden heart attack, zeroing in on the election of his successor. As four main candidates emerge, out come the knives as past histories are raked over. No wax seal is left unbroken.

The film takes place at Rome’s College Of Cardinals. It is inside these hushed walls that votes will be cast, an ancient, ritualised process overseen by the self-effacing Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), a man who is reluctant to put himself forward for the top spot. More than once, he shows his support for the liberal Cardinal Bellini (an enjoyable Stanley Tucci) but there are others in the mix too, including the more conservative Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow) as the run-up to the election is beset by suspicion and intrigue.

Conclave has been scripted by Peter Straughan, who brilliantly adapted 2011’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and directed by Edward Berger, the German filmmaker who made the Oscar-winning 2022 version of wartime classic All Quiet On The Western Front. Together, they’re a lethal combination, creating an absorbing drama that will suck you in. By rights, a film about a papal election should be dull as holy water, but the combination of well-chiselled dialogue, sparkling design and first-rate performances make this a compelling watch.

Berger is particularly enamoured by the voting process that the cardinals undergo, with all its pageantry and ritualism as ballot papers are set alight after votes are cast. With a colour palette of reds, whites and golds, production designer Suzie Davies (Mr. Turner) does a sterling job in recreating the confines where the cardinals gather, including a suitably epic Sistine Chapel. She manages to create an antiseptic feel, a place that suggests calm and purity even if the reality is somewhat different.

Leading the cast, Fiennes is everything you expect: thoughtful, commanding, articulate. It’s a fine performance from an actor who loves to grapple with text. A word too for Isabella Rossellini, who takes a pivotal role as Sister Agnes – a nun who knows far more than she lets on. One of the very few women we see in Conclave, her story acknowledges how females have been subordinated in the Catholic Church.

While Conclave isn’t a hardline take down of an institution that has been beset by scandal this century, including cover-ups of sexual abuse by priests, it does acknowledge that the Church has much to do to modernise. What results is a film that both works as a finely-tuned thriller and a meditation on the Church’s place in today’s society. More robust than similar films like The Two Popes (2019) and We Have a Pope (2011), Conclave is a perfect winter warmer.