Conclave Is A Papal Pulp Thriller Wrapped In Vatican Noir

A LEADING CANDIDATE for Best Picture at the 2025 Oscars, Edward Berger’s Conclave can best be described as papal pulp and Vatican noir — an energetic, entertaining, goofy and almost sardonic account of the closed-doors process (“Conclave”) that elects a new pope. The hallowed College of Cardinals, led by its dean Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), convenes after the pope's death and holds a ballot for its four top contenders. Like a holy reality series, there's investigative intrigue, suspense, deceit, damnation, gossip, secrets, kindness and underdog stealth. Little by little, the reverence of the famously clandestine outfit is dismantled; like a royal family, they become self-important men in robes bickering in a battle for cultural relevance and continuity. As tends to be the case with modern-day priests, the cloth and single-minded devotion are fronts for more human and complicated vices. It's hard to tell if the film is amused or amazed with its near-mythical source material — and I suppose that's part of its Oscar-baity aura.

It's part fanfic, part political thriller, part war drama even, but most of all, its real-world parallels are a thing of morbid beauty. To begin with, the four candidates are surrogates for the factions of the outer world: an American liberal whose main aim is to dismantle the chances of his right-wing opponent, a staunch Italian traditionalist whose views on minorities and women are a few centuries old, a strong social conservative from Africa, and a Canadian moderate who isn't as nice as he looks. While they can be reduced to a type in an increasingly divisive planet full of half-democracies and fascist urges, none of them is spared by a sharp script that slowly reveals its childlike idealism and fairytale twist. A newly anointed Mexican archbishop from Afghanistan observes from the sidelines, his innocence and clarity constantly disarming Lawrence and the others at a time of great strife. 

While the “superpowers” jostle for power, the voice of real identity — and the oppressed that are often reduced to political pawns and middle east policies — comes into focus. It's a hopelessly hopeful take on how the future of the Roman Catholic Church, or religion itself, need not be any different from the future of civilisation and life itself. Conclave is ripe with enlightenment and narrative absolution without blatant messaging or self-righteous posturing. Berger positions his actors as more than just individuals and characters; they speak for yesterday, today and tomorrow, all while being eerily relatable and fallible. It's a bit like watching Spotlight, where the journalism drama is replaced by procedural wonder and campiness. At several points, the viewer can be forgiven for thinking: “This is what decides the colour of the smoke?”

There's also the fact that the film’s awards-season run is now a perversely enjoyable sunset of its plot. Lawrence has the task of investigating and vetting each contender, and one by one, they drop out after something unsavoury or scandalous shows up. And then there was one. Conclave started out as a dark horse in its Oscar run, and though it's nominated in multiple categories, the chances of its primary “opponents” are being undone by controversies: Emilia Perez is virtually out of contention after its lead performer’s bigoted history came to light, while the team of fellow favourite The Brutalist admitted to using AI to tweak the accents and voices of its lead couple. There are more “secrets,” and Conclave (along with perhaps Nickel Boys) stands to gain by virtue of its woke design and compassionate commentary. That's not to say it's undeserving of any accolades, but maybe it takes the unruly exposure and self-destructive tendencies of those in contention to yield the limelight to the more timely candidates. It reflects how even the most personal decisions are made by knowing what we don't want rather than what we need. The process of elimination is the process of living in a world that's replete with dishonest sales pitches.

It helps that Conclave is shot, lit and cut like a concert film looking for commercial release. The spotlight keeps changing, and the conductor has a difficult time composing this new symphony of spirituality. So much of the treatment is satirical and self-serious at once — a rare combination that influences our perception of how the film is having fun with its own uncertainty. Some portions bring to mind the silly Vatican politics of Angels and Demons, but Conclave revels in the spoken and unspoken: the whispers and conversations, the dissent and debates, the scheming and planning, the side-eyed glances and inner demons, the saltiness of experience versus the naive ambition of youth. They might be the smallest country, but they're a concentration of larger malaises and conflicts.

Isabella Rossellini, as the only woman of note in the environment, makes her presence felt as the only woman of note in a notoriously patriarchal environment. She begins the rot, only for the “rot” to reveal itself as an act of reckoning and healing. Fiennes unleashes a wonderfully high-pitched face in the frenzy of moral smokescreens. Lawrence is the dean, but he is also the people; he is us, and his choices — of both complicity and duty — are rooted in a grey landscape where lesser evils must trump fake virtue. When he opts to stay silent, we challenge our own conditioning in favour of a progressive vision. It's not about what we know, it's about what we strive to achieve and un-know. In that context alone, Conclave is where cynicism goes to die. It's a wish-fulfilment portrait of excesses, but one that keeps us invested in what should come next. The anticipation is defined by the system’s commitment to the sheer lack of it. After all, if the Vatican can conspire to change, anyone can.