On the death of the Pope at 88, the new film Conclave has an added impact. By Harry Mount
Latin fans will love Conclave, the adaptation of Robert Harris’s 2016 film about the battle to become a new pope.
Not since Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) has there been so much Latin in a big feature film. The late Pope Francis, who restricted the Latin Mass, won’t have booked a seat at the Vatican Odeon.
At St Peter’s, there’s a sede vacante – an empty seat – after the death of the last Pope. All the cardinals vying for the top job are horrified by a last-minute rogue candidate, the Cardinal Archbishop of Kabul. He’d been appointed by the Pope in pectore (‘in the breast’, or in secret) – so none of them has ever heard of him.
Ralph Fiennes, who plays Cardinal- Dean Thomas Lawrence, the man overseeing the papal election, speaks Latin like a Caesar, without showing off or over-enunciating. He is subtle and understated in the way he tracks down and expels the dodgy cardinals in the running.
All the while, Lawrence gives the impression that, like Julius Caesar, he is openly not keen on supreme power, while secretly plotting his journey to the top.
With all this Latin floating around, you can’t accuse the writer, Peter Straughan, or director, Edward Berger, of dumbing down.
In fact, the greatest pleasure in this slightly disappointing film is the way it gets all the little details right, thanks to Robert Harris’s meticulous research for the novel.
After the Pope’s death, his papal ring has its seal sheared off to stop anyone from forging it. The cardinals are locked into the Vatican with a key – con clave; thus the word conclave.
And how intriguing to read the little voting cards the cardinals use, inscribed with the words Eligo in Summum Pontificem (‘I elect as Supreme Pope’).
Once those votes are counted, the little cards are burnt in the Vatican fire (along with the right sort of dye) to produce black smoke or the white smoke that signifies Habemus papam – ‘We have a pope!’
The various voting rounds are peppered with all the delicious plot twists Harris devised. One cardinal candidate turns out to have had a secret child 30 years before.
Another has been using that information to get him out of the race.
Behind the scenes, Isabella Rossellini delivers a cameo masterclass as Sister Agnes, the wily, clever nun on the side of the angels, assisting the search for the ideal pope.
The film is also convincing in depicting the real-life split in the Vatican between the hardline and liberal wings of the church.
The traditional candidate is Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto, a marvellously diabolical baddy, with a whiff of sulphur). And the right-on candidate is Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci, a fine essay in sly virtue-signalling).
So it’s all there. A dream Robert Harris plot. All the gloriously abstruse Vatican details. Plenty of Latin.
But ... but ... It’s all a little too correct. Ralph Fiennes is brilliantly convincing but he’s a little too understated, talking in a sotto-voce, boring monotone most of the time.
The complex plot is delivered in too plodding and linear a way – with each revelation dropped between each round of papal voting.
And the zinger of an ending – when (Latin spoiler warning!) the Cardinal Archbishop of Kabul turns out to be a dea ex machina rather than a deus ex machina – is so awkwardly handled as to become preposterous.
Robert Harris’s scaffolding is all in place to put the thrills in the thriller – but they are lost in the direction and in the film’s overlong two hours.
Given the admirable efforts to get the details correct, a right level of seriousness is established. But, against that serious background, there should have been room for a little humour in opposition, too, if not quite on the sublime level of Father Ted – or Padre Edoardo.
