Vatican City. The Pope dies, so over a hundred Catholic cardinals from all over the world gather at the Sistine Chapel to vote for the next Pope. Among the candidates is Thomas Lawrence, Aldo Bellini, Tremblay, and others. The leading candidate, and a potential first African Pope, Adeyemi, is disqualified when a nun from the kitchen reveals she had a child with him 30 years ago. But when Lawrence finds out Tremblay had the nun flown from Nigeria, Tremblay is also disqualified. The candidates cannot agree if they should follow the hardline traditional or the more liberal way. A priest from Kabul, Benitez, is elected, and he becomes the first transgender Pope.
Despite high critical acclaim and numerous nominations and awards, "Conclave" is still a movie below all the hype, a rather standard, conventional and dry depiction of behind-the-scenes problems of a conclave. Its two main virtues are aesthetic shot compositions of the interiors and the strong performance by the always competent Ralph Fiennes as Thomas Lawrence, a cardinal who is having a crisis in faith, yet evverything else is just as sufficiently good as it needs to be, and nothing more than that. An interesting perspective is that several cardinals try to sabotage each other in order to gain advantage for themselves for the votes for the Pope, which mirrors certain Presidential political campaigns and the fight for power, but it would have been better if "Conclave" had explored that even more of this dirty campaign, or if a murder happened which would have livened up this wait for the final vote. As it is, it flows smoothly, yet isn't particularly inspired, whereas the "plot twist" at the end does not feel that rewarding or worth the wait of 120 minutes. Some humorous touches give it intermittent spice, such as when it is shown how some cardinals smoke while another one is more preoccupied typing on his mobile phone than preparing for the election process.
Grade:++
