Conclave (2024) (2024)
October 26, 2024 10:38 PM - Subscribe

After the unexpected death of the Pope, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is tasked with managing the covert and ancient ritual of electing a new one. Sequestered in the Vatican with the Catholic Church's most powerful leaders until the process is complete, Lawrence finds himself at the center of a conspiracy that could lead to its downfall.

Most of you will be old enough to remember the seventies/eighties-style airport thriller. This is that thriller in film form. It's extremely DRAMATIC and deeply silly. In light of the silliness, you may find the final twist to be in questionable taste. I'm still not sure.
posted by praemunire (19 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I actually really want to watch this.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:12 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]


If you're in the mood for it, it could be enjoyable. I'm just not sure they intended it to be as campy as it ended up coming across to me. Fiennes, for instance, seems to be playing things very seriously.
posted by praemunire at 11:24 AM on October 28, 2024


I really enjoyed this. I love religion-as-courtroom-drama schadenfreude.

The reactions have truly been all over the place. My theater applauded at the end. I have another friend who saw it and said "this somehow healed religious trauma more than my therapist has".... My deeply Catholic mother loved it. On the other hand, I know people who are very offended by it for one reason or another.

Walking out, my first thought was I appreciated the comments/side eyes given in the writing. Many will not say they go far enough, to which I would argue this film contains about a millennia of progress for the Church, only they show it as happening in under a month.

I also appreciated the scene that took down fearmongering as an excuse to hate. I hope the people who really need to hear that message get to watch this film.

Having not read the book ahead of time, I admit I spent about 75% of the film thinking Fiennes's character had somehow murdered the Pope, and we were slowly going to learn it was him over the course of the film. Maybe it's because he plays a guilty Catholic way too well, but I wanted to yell HE DID IT from the first closeup of his eyes.
posted by haplesschild at 1:53 PM on October 28, 2024 [8 favorites]


i love stanley tucci so this is a no brainsr for me
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 3:44 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]


I very much liked the one speech that I think haplesschild is referring to. Otherwise I mostly enjoyed the acting. The amusing little things like Isabella Rossellini's character doing the Law and Order schtick of, I'm going to leave the room now with a page up on my computer, do with it what you will. Also, a certain character's expression near the end while watching some young nuns run laughing out of the building. They were all so good and I look forward to seeing more from that newcomer too.

My partner, on the other hand, was really moved. He was brought up Catholic but his whole family broke with the church over the scandals and the kinds of vatican politics that were on display here. He absolutely loved the denouement.

Was there really as little food on display as I think there was? I was imagining meals for this crowd would be really good. I enjoyed seeing them make the stuff, but not enough of the finished product.
posted by BibiRose at 5:43 AM on November 5, 2024


On the other hand, I know people who are very offended by it for one reason or another.

Oh, I can think of one reason in particular, I bet....

This is the second "high dramaz while picking a new pope" film I've seen - the first was Angels and Demons, the DaVinci Code sequel where there's faff about the God Particle and a murder subplot and Ewan MacGregor just so happens to be a priest with combat flight training and yadda yadda. This was far more grounded in reality - and was still equally as compelling, if not more so.

The amusing little things like Isabella Rossellini's character doing the Law and Order schtick of, I'm going to leave the room now with a page up on my computer, do with it what you will.

I actually clapped in the theater when she delivered that smackdown in the cafeteria, and then dropped a little curtsey before walking out. ....I was the only one who did, but who cares, she earned it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:56 AM on November 17, 2024 [5 favorites]


Also, there was a ripple of cynical laughter in the NYC theater last night at Stanley Tucci's line about how they were all now stuck voting for "the lesser of two evils".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:10 AM on November 17, 2024 [1 favorite]


I just saw this and loved it. I loved the aforementioned speech, getting to see Tucci and Lithgow and Fiennes AND Rossellini all on screen for the same movie, and the bit with the turtle. It seemed like a rather obvious metaphor but I loved it all the same.

I had a long sad bummer of a day and this lifted me up.
posted by bunderful at 5:45 PM on November 17, 2024


AV club review
posted by bunderful at 7:29 PM on November 17, 2024


This movie is SO PRETTY. Not just the pretty pretty men in it, but also each shot is composed like an artwork, so deliberate and so artificial that it really fits with the content of the movie itself, the deliberate artsiness and beauty and artificiality of Catholic rituals and settings. I hear the Domus Sanctae Marthae setting was fictionalized, and it doesn't actually look like a cold white-and-black marble retrofuturist dystopia in there? Good to know! But damn it was effective.

I, too, was shouting HE DID IT from the moment Ralph Fiennes came on screen. After Schindler's List and the Harry Potter movies, I just expect evil every time I see him, and here especially he is in Catholic priest robes? Come on. The association is too obvious.

Anyway I loved this movie so much I immediately downloaded a bunch of Robert Harris books on my Libby app and am methodically, delightedly making my way through them. Just finished The Second Sleep, which *really* good, and currently on Munich which is also gripping.
posted by MiraK at 12:01 PM on November 23, 2024 [2 favorites]


This movie is SO PRETTY. Not just the pretty pretty men in it, but also each shot is composed like an artwork, so deliberate and so artificial that it really fits with the content of the movie itself, the deliberate artsiness and beauty and artificiality of Catholic rituals and settings.

I predict a Cinematography Oscar nomination at least, if not an outright win.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:51 AM on November 24, 2024 [2 favorites]


This was fantastic, right up my alley. The acting was amazing, I love the cast, and I love the conservative cardinal's shiny red vape pen.

I'm not sure whether I really bought that Pope Innocent's speech at the end would be enough for the cardinals to elect him, especially when he seemed to have just materialized out of thin air moments before the conclave And despite the milieu, I dock a few points from this for not passing the Bechdel Test. But overall this was great.
posted by whir at 10:01 AM on December 15, 2024 [3 favorites]


watched last night, not necessarily my cup of tea but well done. I enjoyed the nearly girl-fight catty level of bitchiness and in-fighting amongst the various factions. not very holy, boys. and yes the visuals, the architecture, the art etc., amazing! I have not (yet) been to the Vat so it was a treat to get a tour of sorts.
posted by supermedusa at 10:07 AM on January 10


LET’S HAVE A CONCLAVE (sound on, please)
posted by btfreek at 9:01 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]


Watched this tonight and loved it! Dramatic and beautifully shot. Such a treat to see such fantastic actors together too.
posted by ellieBOA at 12:38 PM on January 11


My husband and I watched this yesterday and really loved it. I actually found the bombing scene to be really out there--at first I thought it was a metaphorical bombing as it happened when Fiennes was casting his first vote for himself--and because how the heck would someone be able to get a bomb so close to the cardinals? But I didn't mind it too much.

All of the acting was first rate--I wanted to punch Lithgow in the face several times, and Tucci's journey from "I don't really want this" to "why are you trying to steal this from me" to "you'd make a better Pope than I would" was just incredible. And when Isabella Rossellini curtsied my husband and I laughed out loud--I may have thrown my fist in the air, I can't remember. She was so great.

Yeah, I have to admit I loved nearly every second of it. My head canon is now that Fiennes becomes Pope Innocent's right hand and most important advisor (and they all live happily ever after). Except Cardinal Tremblay and Cardinal Tedesco.
posted by ceejaytee at 11:04 AM on January 16 [2 favorites]


Maybe my expectations were too high but I had a "okay I liked that, but where's the rest of it?" feeling coming out of it. Just a little too spare and tidy or something. Thin beer. Maybe in a manner of speaking (ie not literally) I expected name of the rose and got a comic book.

What it did have, I liked just fine, though. Very kind of God to so immediately and clearly punish Feinnesy for writing his own name.
posted by fleacircus at 3:28 PM on January 23


And when Isabella Rossellini curtsied my husband and I laughed out loud--I may have thrown my fist in the air, I can't remember.

Hell, I applauded at that. Which was kinda awkward because I was the only one and it was a crowded theater but hey.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:40 PM on January 23


Idk. Realpolitiik throughout and then one rando gives a nice speech and then, boom, Pope Innocent XIV? That was a bridge too far for me.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 7:32 PM on February 7


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