Conclave

A name is written on a slip of paper. The slip is folded, cast, and counted. Then it becomes clear how many men have made the same decision—but not why. Conclave turns this simple process into a thriller in which numbers constantly promise certainty, yet almost everything of interest remains hidden.

Following the Pope’s death, the cardinals eligible to vote gather in the Vatican. They are tasked with selecting a successor, cut off from the outside world and bound by a process that leaves little room for improvisation. Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) presides over the conclave. He organizes an election whose rules leave little room for doubt, while he himself is grappling with something far more fundamental: his faith.

The first ballot yields no decision. So they talk. Over dinner. In the hallways. Between doors. A handshake might last a little longer than necessary. Someone knows something about another. Someone wants to know who might have cast a particular vote. And, of course, there are men who insist they have no ambition to hold the highest office in the Catholic Church, while all around them, people have long been discussing whether they would be suitable for it. Here, modesty and ambition must somehow coexist within the same man.

Edward Berger doesn’t need a conspiracy with secret meetings in dark basements for this. Almost everything happens openly among people who, shortly afterward, gather together again for the next vote. It is precisely this closeness that makes the conclave uncomfortable. No one simply disappears from the picture after a conversation. The same faces return. The same person sits across the table again. And at some point, a name must be written on a slip of paper once more.

Gradually, candidates emerge. Stanley Tucci’s Bellini represents a more liberal direction, Sergio Castellitto’s Tedesco a more conservative vision of the Church; Tremblay (John Lithgow) navigates this landscape with his own authority. Their positions are important, but Conclave doesn’t turn this into a political campaign show in red robes. The key point is that no one here is voting solely on the basis of abstract platforms. The cardinals are electing people they know, can assess, or at least believe they can assess.

Lawrence is supposed to let this influence him as little as possible. Ralph Fiennes plays Lawrence as a reserved observer who is reluctantly drawn deeper and deeper into the proceedings. He listens, asks questions, and learns things that cannot be forgotten afterward. Even a single piece of information that proves nothing can change an election. This creates an uncomfortable dilemma for Lawrence: How neutral can someone remain who knows more and more?

Conclave is a political thriller that leaves out almost everything that usually defines a thriller. Its power struggles consist of conversations, its plot twists of information, and its visible progress of numbers on a board. Edward Berger treats the papal election neither as an exotic ritual nor as a lesson in church doctrine. He views it as what it is for these men: an election among people who have set out to represent something greater than their personal interests—and yet still bring their personal interests into the mix.