The certainty of others

Conclave uses the Catholic Church as a grand stage for old-school drama

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If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I do most of my first-run moviegoing during Oscar season, when I see all the Best Picture nominees and a plurality of others so I can make predictions. It’s silly, but it gets me out of the house and makes me feel like part of something bigger than myself. During the rest of the year I hardly go at all. I make exceptions for occasional cultural phenomena that pique my interest, like the recent folie Megalopolis, but mainly I just look at the papers and go, huh, that one sounds interesting, maybe I should go, and then I make a cup of coffee and when I finish it the movie is on streaming and I’m not longer interested. (Still thinking about The Substance, though.)

Last weekend, I felt gravitationally pulled to the theater for Conclave. Turns out that I was not the only senior citizen so allured:

The Vatican thriller… opened to a sweet $6.5 million at about 1,750 theaters. The kicker is that some 77% of the audience is over 35 with the biggest chunk (44%) being 55+, a rare feat.

I can see the film’s appeal for the end-of-life set. For one thing, it presumes the existence and validity of an institution — not just the Catholic Church but also the papacy, the curia, the college of cardinals, and all that old Vatican jazz. Old people love that shit. They — we — grew up with at least provisional respect for institutions such as the government, the press, the military and branches thereof, etc. Many still have those feelings, but years of assaults on (or, it may be better said, revelations about) those institutions have diminished their authority; if they’re prominent in a story, you have to expect either that they’ll be shit on, or that great effort will be expended on defending and/or rehabilitating them, which will make them seem all the weaker and thus less worthy of respect.

I realize it seems odd to talk about the Church, famously home to many generations of multiple pedophilic rings, as an institution above such reproaches. But if you transport most Americans to the tippy-top of any hierarchy, a palace or even an executive suite, you can overawe them with the trappings and distract them from whatever seamy backstory there may be. In fact there are references in Conclave to sexual abuse in the dialogue and plotting, but the presumption is that it’s the imperfect servants and princes of the Church who are tainted by it, not the institution itself.

Conclave pulls it off in two ways: First, director Edward Berger focuses visually on ecclesiastic regalia and accoutrements — the cardinals’ red cassocks and nuns’ grey habits, the formalities of the scrutiny with its silver salver and ballot receptacle, the means of obtaining the correct color for the fomata, etc. The old Bells and Smells are captivating to believing Catholics, but anyone else who admires ritual and ceremony may also be roped in, particularly if they are hungry enough for certainties to accept someone else’s.

The other way this trick is done is via a staple of both the Church and the movies: The tormented priest. From Arthur Dimmesdale to Damien Karras, men of God are never so attractive to audiences as when they are suffering crises of faith, and here comes the dean of the college of cardinals, named Thomas oh come on now, who not only has that problem but also really wants to do the right thing by God and the Church, which seems at first to distinguish him from the pettifoggers and politickers over whom he must ride herd when the Pope kicks off and he must convene the conclave to replace him.

If I tell you that after many intrigues, red herrings, and very pleasing exchanges of literate dialogue by first-tier actors, not only Thomas but also the Mother Church find some salvation, I’m pretty sure none of you who were thinking of seeing it will be dissuaded. We all know at least by instinct that the drama of a priest’s torment must resolve in grace. (That’s what’s so jarring and even disgusting about the rare exceptions, like the gutless Carvajal in Aguirre, The Wrath of God.)

As played by Ralph Fiennes, who is becoming my favorite actor, Thomas is a true and even successful man of God — he sees right and wrong as clearly as a tailor sees flaws and perfection in a cut. His crisis is very similar (we come to learn) to that of the fallen Pontiff: Not, as another cardinal says, that he lost faith in God, but that he lost faith in the Church. And who can blame him: the college is every bit the rat’s nest one might expect — though, not to reveal too much and contrary to first impressions, the film grants that even the most political cardinals are pursuing principle, however wrongly, rather than power for its own sake. (In one of my favorite scenes, Thomas makes an accommodation with his friend, the hard-charging liberal candidate Cardinal Bellini, whom he had insulted for his ambition; I will not describe it, but the scene ends with Thomas saying — admitting — “‘John.’ I would choose ‘John.’” The impact in context is profound.)

Thomas works manfully to navigate not only normal conclave rigamarole but also scandalous events that throw it off-kilter — in fact at this he is almost shockingly adroit, despite his private crisis. When the late Pope had rejected Thomas’ resignation as dean, he’d told him that some are called to be shepherds and others to “manage the farm”; Thomas originally took this charge with some bitterness, but it becomes clear that the managerial mission is what calls him out of his morass, and empowers him to do likewise for the Church.

As mentioned, all the acting is terrific; Fiennes wonderfully projects tough-mindedness even as he nurses his theological wound, a Thomas capable of turning doubt into strength. Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini et alia put just enough mustard on the ham. (I particularly enjoyed Rony Kramer as a trad reactionary who’s dead serious about taking the Church back a few centuries but still capable of cheerful brio.) Berger, as one might expect of the director of All Quiet on the Western Front, leans into the sepulchral aspect of the Vatican — maybe a little too much, as the older folks at the showing I attended were audibly yawning and I am sure it was the dark palette rather than the movie that somnolized them. But that gives him a chance to slowly add light, in patches and streams, in keeping with the revelatory theme. I will add that if you are, like me, a cradle Catholic, Conclave may have a little extra frisson. I left the Church long ago, but for a few hours now and then I can accept, in the form of the theatre it so closely resembles, the comfort of old liturgy.