REVIEW: “Conclave” – Faithful to a Fault

By Jacob Jones

The act of adaptation can be a particularly tricky line to walk; stray too far from the source material one is adapting, and your product is either regarded as a failure by those familiar with such material, or a triumph by those who deemed it too bland to be interesting on its own. On the other hand, stay too faithful to the story being told, and the adaptation becomes traditionally boring, wherein the lack of alterations to a tale whose origins are mediocre at best then reinforce that mediocrity as it appears on screen. The most audacious adaptations – The Godfather, Arrival, No Country for Old Men, Killers of the Flower Moon, etc. – elevate their source material (regardless of how good it already was on its own) to new heights by switching up approaches, changing plot details so as to make them more accessible to a wider range of people, and filtering all of the character details found in book pages through exceptional performances by remarkably skillful actors and masterful direction. But not every adaptation can reach the same heights, and sometimes all one needs for an adaptation to be successful is a faithful approach to quality source material. This is where Conclave comfortably sits.
 
Based on the book of the same name by Thomas Harris, Conclave’s story finds its center in Ralph Fiennes’ Cardinal Lawrence, who – in the wake of the Pope’s unfortunate death – is charged with running a new Conclave in which all eligible Cardinals will vote to select the Holy Father’s successor. Once one Cardinal receives a two-thirds majority of the vote, that person will become the new Pope, and the face of universal church. Sometimes these elections can take mere hours; sometimes they take days, and with no less than three front-runners making plays for the throne, anything can happen. With the world and the church’s place in it on the brink of total collapse, it is imperative that the Conclave swiftly and decisively select the right representative, both for God, and for the millions of faithful around the globe. This film also stars Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini.
 
How films like Conclave land for someone is all about the approach to watching it. If you go in blind, you’re likely to have a greater reaction to its myriad of plot turns and twists, but you’re also less likely to forgive how the film essentially skips getting to know its characters on a personal level, apart from their individual interactions with Cardinal Lawrence, whom the film is content to have the audience become familiar with through Ralph Fiennes’ layered, deeply understated performance. Having finished Harris’ book mere hours before seeing the film for the first time, I was able to pinpoint in Fiennes’ eyes where all of the character’s internal thoughts came through in the story as outlined in the original text, but for those who haven’t read it, I would imagine that this is a difficult element to understand without any sort of clue given by the film itself. Fiennes is such a skilled actor that in order to play this part right, it requires an almost anti-theatricality, and he nails every beat perfectly, if one knows where to look for them. The same could be applied to both John Lithgow and Stanley Tucci’s characters as well, although we do get to know them more thoroughly through conversations, whereas with Lawrence, the audience is left to simply accept whatever it is about him they can glean from his subtler demeanor. As for Rossellini, while she does feature in one terrific scene towards the third act of the film, the rest of her performance is largely hidden by the needs of the plot, relegating her to more of a background character than a genuine supporting player most of the time.
 
To assuage any doubts that may have arisen: Conclave is a good movie. It’s well-mounted, the no-frills approach to adapting the book works, and all of the performances are played at exactly the right pitch for the story being told. While some of its production elements can feel a tad formulaic at times, they serve their respective purposes in making the story feel coherent, dramatic, and occasionally quite funny, and there are moments of genuine greatness among them, particularly in the cinematography and the costume designs. But herein lies my question: is Conclave a good movie only because the book it’s based on is a good story? Berger’s approach to viewing the Conclave less like the most important thing that could ever occur in a religious sector of the world and more like an overly gossipy workplace meeting that we seem to be in on imbues the film with a sense of fun it may otherwise have lacked, but given its near one-to-one translation from the source material, how much of that credit can be truly given to Berger, and how much goes to Harris’ original text? For me, most of it goes to Harris. Berger is a skilled filmmaker, as evidence by Netflix’s adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front in 2022, but if one is going to adapt books as famous as those Berger has helmed thus far, every production element needs to be firing on all cylinders in order to elevate the director above the material he chooses.
 
As it stands, Conclave is the sort of movie I wish we had twenty of every year. A gripping mystery, told by skilled filmmakers, with some of the best performers in the world chewing the scenery as though they’d not eaten since their last screen test. Even without the level of craftsmanship it would need to be truly competitive in most awards categories (and with one book scene missing that I feel would have elevated it beyond just being very good), it’s a delightfully fun time at the movies, and it’s nice to see that the mid-budget thriller driven by dialogue and character, rather than spectacle, is making a handsome comeback.
 
I’m giving “Conclave” a 7.8/10
 
- The Friendly Film Fan