It could hardly be more appropriate that Robert Harris’s preposterously gripping (and sometimes grippingly preposterous) drama of papal electioneering finds itself competing for multiple first-division Academy Awards. There are analogies here with national elections, but what goes on in the conclave, with its tidier voting body, is closer to the arm-twisting, blackmailing and guilt-tripping one encounters at the Oscars. Yes, it’s as nasty as that. If still a little more significant.
How comforting to encounter a contender that relies so heavily on old-school, convoluted plotting. You would, of course, expect such from an adaptation of a Robert Harris novel. It would be a shame to give too much of that story away, but we can surely observe that, when the sitting pope dies suddenly, the dean of the College of Cardinals, Thomas Lawrence (a flawless Ralph Fiennes), is called in to officiate the coming election.
Stanley Tucci is snappy and forceful as the liberal candidate. Sergio Castellitto is magnificently oily as a scary traditionalist manipulator. (The film’s political sympathies are never in doubt.) John Lithgow looks to provide a potential compromise. All are shaken by the arrival of a hitherto unknown Mexican voter (Carlos Diehz) who has been serving clandestinely as archbishop of Kabul.
That last twist kicks up reminders of Anthony Quinn in the 1968 adaptation of Morris West’s The Shoes of the Fisherman, but Conclave is an altogether more rambunctious affair than that faux-serious papal epic. We move at a dizzying clatter as revelation upends revelation. You expect research from a Robert Harris adaptation, and, though many experts will complain about the broad treatment of Catholic politics, the details on procedure are fascinating throughout.
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Edward Berger, director of the recent All Quiet on the Western Front, and Stéphane Fontaine, his experienced cinematographer, bring an eye-watering lavishness to the interiors. As the cardinals vape furiously and poke at their smartphones, we feel ourselves living in a kind of phantom anachronism.
Does it all add up? The cleaved-brow Fiennes, who does inner torture better than anyone, makes something believable of Lawrence’s battle for truth and integrity. Isabella Rossellini works magic with a minute supporting role. But few will survive the final scenes without pondering the Italian for “magnificent hokum”.
In cinemas from Friday, November 29th
