One of Toy Story 2's most soothing scenes concerns The Cleaner (Jonathan Harris) restoring Woody (Tom Hanks) to pristine condition. There's something relaxing and soothing about watching this master of his craft sewing up Woody, delicately restoring the toy's pupils, repairing his boots, and applying other lavish touch-ups to this child’s plaything. Witnessing assured people making things look sharp is therapy for the soul. It’s like a cozy reminder that there are human beings out there capable of making order out of life’s chaos.
Conclave gets off on the right foot evoking The Cleaner’s precision. The earliest scenes of this Edward Berger directorial effort have the camera lingering on folks engaging in small but important tasks in various nooks of the Vatican. One cardinal meticulously removes and then bifurcates a ring that used to lie on the pope’s hand. A spurt of melted wax is poured on some ribbon and then stamped to signify a door’s importance. Workers toil away tirelessly rolling out red carpets and fixing windows in preparation for countless visiting cardinals and nuns. It’s shockingly relaxing to see all this sausage getting made. It’s also one among many ways Conclave delivers delightfully unexpected pleasures.
Peter Straughan's Conclave screenplay (adapted from the 2016 Robert Harris novel of the same name) begins with death. A pope has passed away from purportedly a heart attack. Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is shocked after this loss. Quickly, though, he must gather his bearings. He's overseeing the voting procedure for the next pope, after all. Cardinals from all over the world will soon descend on The Vatican for a sequestered stay involving them choosing the latest face of the Catholic Church.
Among the candidates for this position are Lawrence's pal Bellini (Stanley Tucci), the outspoken Italian conservative Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), and Tremblay (John Lithgow), one of the last people to see the recently deceased pope alive. In this house of God, scheming abounds. Everyone’s got strategies to secure votes from their fellow cardinals. More pressingly, though, Lawrence finds his “objective” position challenged by constant leaks of valuable damaging information about potential pope frontrunners. Everyone’s got secrets here. “We men live for an ideal,” as one cardinal observes, “but we are not ideal.”
The Conclave posters and commercials may lead you to understandably consider this feature as a stuffy slog. Berger’s middling previous directorial effort All Quiet on the Western Front certainly doesn’t make one think this feature will have much energy. In a twist M. Night Shyamalan could’ve penned, though, Conclave is a riot. Not only that, Conclave also radiates with unexpectedly gay energy. Queers do not want The Prom, Uncle Frank, or Dicks: The Musicals. Conclave, meanwhile, lives up to the standards of many classic movies adored and endlessly quoted by Todd Haynes and Shea Diamond devotees. A bunch of incredible actors playing the cattiest b*tches alive who keep backstabbing each other? And it all comes with glorious costumes, ornate cinematography, and a delightfully bombastic score. Looks like gay-friendly cinema is back on the menu, boys!
Berger’s confidence in wringing so much extra drama out of Conclave’s world proves critical to why it’s so entertaining. For one thing, he and cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine commit to executing lavish tableaus even when on-screen characters do something as simple as smoking cigarettes outside or just chatting inside a mostly darkened auditorium. These are mundane activities for the in-universe characters. However, so much pressure and historical importance quietly rest on their every move. Deeply precise blocking and camera positioning constantly remind moviegoers of that vitality. Figures like Lawrence or Bellini are often blocked in a specific grand style evoking the arrangement of human beings in ancient paintings dotting the walls and roofs of The Vatican.
Speaking of Lawrence and Bellini, there’s a scene towards Conclave’s end where the duo is talking outside. This conversation is initially framed in a wide shot where they sit close to each other on the image’s left side. Berger and Fontaine keep the camera glued onto this expansive framing, which features lots of empty space on the right side of the screen. It’s a tiny detail, but also one epitomizing Conclave’s strong visual sensibilities. Seeing this pair in close quarters in this spacious image crystallizes their tight bond in a vast web of conspiracy. The emptiness, meanwhile, suggests the greater off-screen societal and in-church pressures always weighing on the two. We don’t need to see confrontational reporters or antagonistic souls like Tedesco to understand these stressful forces. Like James Wong Howe’s masterful Hud cinematography, Conclave uses wider sweeping images to inject so much meaning into even the simplest on-screen conversations.
Visual confidence is mirrored in Berger and Straughan’s cheeky deftness in unraveling each new layer of conspiracy and betrayal lurking within Conclave’s world. There’s an impressive filmmaking balance going on with these revelations. Real emotional weight underscores each fresh duplicitous development. We’re discernibly watching believable human beings navigate landmines of suppressed information. Yet it’s still fun to gasp and get on the edge of your seat wondering what new secrets Lawrence and company will discover next. Well-timed edits (courtesy of editor Nick Emerson) and precise camera movements manifest the dramatic without diluting one’s investment in characters like Lawrence.
That achievement also manifests courtesy of Conclave’s outstanding cast. Veteran performers like Fiennes, Tucci, Lithgow, and Rossellini know their way around both Shakespeare and glorious trash. Both skills are delightfully utilized on Conclave. Rossellini is especially entrancing in a supporting turn as Sister Agnes. This iconic performer effortlessly weaves a deeply experienced and fierce aura that instantly makes her more imposing than any of the male cardinals. Lawrence, Todesco, Bellini, they may be men of God. However, Rossellini’s outspoken portrayal of Sister Agnes makes it clear this woman has the intimidation of God on her side.
It's also nice to see Fiennes back in a deeply thoughtful leading role again after a few years in the wilderness headlining 2021's worst movie (The King's Man) and frustratingly defending J.K. Rowling's transphobic rhetoric. The man behind M. Gustave is just as captivating as ever channeling Kermit the Frog in Conclave’s protagonist. Like that banjo-strumming amphibian, Fiennes portrays Lawrence as a man organizing a large event while being the calm counterpart to his outsized colleagues. Of course, like Kermit, Lawrence is prone to his own flights of flawed fancy. It’s a personality Fiennes inhabits so wonderfully. He’s a perfect anchor for Conclave.
Fiennes and Rossellini's on-screen work accompanies an enjoyably pronounced Volker Bertelmann score. Bertelmann's last time working with Berger (on Western Front) produced deeply disappointing results. That one relentless Western Front leitmotif that sounded like Hans Zimmer's intro to a 2012 dubstep song was especially grating. Thankfully, this composer comes up with far more distinctive and entertainingly brash creations for Conclave. Idiosyncratic imposing noises and instrumentation dominate these orchestral compositions. Like the cinematography and performances, Bertelmann accentuates Conclave’s enthralling theatrical tendencies. Though it begins channeling Toy Story 2's most soothing sequence, Conclave quickly morphs into something more absorbingly grandiloquent. Gather up all the gays you know and have a great time at the theater.