Who knew that the laborious process of democracy, of simply voting over and over again, could be so exciting and so amusing? Edward Berger’s drama is adapted with masterly flair by screenwriter Peter Straughan from the Robert Harris pageturner; Ralph Fiennes is on sumptuous form as the deeply troubled Cardinal Lawrence at the centre of a murky Vatican plot. The result is a high-camp gripper, like the world’s most serious Carry On film.
Fiennes’ character is Italian in Harris’s book, but Straughan makes him an Englishman: an unquiet soul who is theoretically on the verge of becoming the first English pope since Adrian IV, although no one is so vulgar or nationalistic as to point that out. With the ailing pope in extremis, Cardinal Lawrence arrives at His Holiness’s death bed to find other ambitious cardinals, who have all cultivated an opaque, unreadable manner of cordially respectful friendship with each other, now manoeuvring to be considered the successor in the imminent conclave, or election. In this blue chip supporting cast Stanley Tucci plays Bellini, the liberal; Sergio Castellitto is pugnacious, reactionary Tedesco, a racist bigot; John Lithgow is Tremblay, whose blandly emollient manner is misleading; Lucian Msamati is the bullish Adeyemi; and Carlos Diehz is Benitez, an unknown figure who to everyone’s polite consternation had been created Cardinal Archbishop of Kabul without anyone realising. Yet all of these men are upstaged by the late pontiff’s confidante Sister Agnes, shrewdly played by Isabella Rossellini.
Lawrence is deeply burdened by his own crisis of faith and by a suspicion of dark forces at work: the perennial sadness in Fiennes’ eyes becomes an unfathomable dual-ocean of suppressed tears. The pope dies without granting Lawrence his wish to resign as dean of the College of Cardinals, and also without being able to reveal what he knew of dark secrets concerning one or more of these candidates; this means a corrupt figure may be about to become pope. Poor, self-effacing Lawrence finds himself as unofficial cheerleader for progressive Bellini in the voting rounds, but to his dismay sees his own vote count increasing each time. Should he have the humility to accept this mysterious destiny? But if the burden of authority means he is unable to expose this corrupt conspiracy, might not the prince of darkness be imposing a terrible temptation?
Berger orchestrates marvellously tense, explosively dramatic scenes and with cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine and production designer Suzie Davies contrives some spectacularly strange and dream-like tableaux. I can never quite get past a sense that there is something bizarrely sacrilegious in actually showing this voting process (similarly in Nanni Moretti’s 2011 film We Have a Pope). As for Fiennes, there is great pleasure to be had in his performance; I myself have always rejected his supposed resemblance to a certain 1970s TV comedy actor, and yet in the extraordinary scene when he learns something startling about one of the cardinals and has to sit down, mouth slightly agape – well, I did see it.
And so the conclave becomes a nail-biting horse race with a photo-finish. The distinguished novelist with whom I saw this film told me on the way out that the story is completely lifted from National Velvet. That’s as may be; but what a performance from Fiennes.
• Conclave is in UK and Irish cinemas from 29 November and Australia from 9 January.
