As the Cardinals meet in Rome to find a new Pope for real, it is a propitious time to consider “Conclave,” the “thriller” (as Wikipedia calls it, a stretch) about a fictional conclave after the death of a fictional Pope. I had several friends recommend the film to me, and I finally watched it this week.
I’ll complete this ethics overview without spoilers since the film is relatively new, but wow, what a disappointment. Strong cast, excellent performances, brilliant production design and cinematography, but still, “Conclave” has to be one of the most wildly over-praised films I’ve seen since “Don’t Look Up!,” “The Crying Game” or “Ghost.” This overt Hollywood woke propaganda piece received eight nominations at the 97th Academy Awards, a number once reserved for all-time classics like “Ben-Hur,” “West Side Story” or “Lawrence of Arabia.” Its Best Picture nomination shows how far movie-making standards have fallen and that it won Best Adapted Screenplay is outrageous, since the screenplay was the worst aspect of the movie, predictable, over-wrought and unbelievable.
My late wife was superb at sleuthing out “surprise” endings of movies by the half-way mark or earlier; this time I felt like I was channeling her spirit because I guessed the movie’s ending (and woke propaganda mission) the second the key character showed up. I also thought, “Oh no, really? They are stooping to this?” Indeed they were.
“Conclave” is, ultimately, trivial and soap opera-ish, no better and less entertaining than the loony movie version of Dan Brown’s follow-up to “The Da Vinci Code,” “Angels and Demons.” Along the way to an anti-climax, we get more of the “white man bad/black man victim,” pro-LGTBQ+ proselytizing that Tinseltown has been addicted to for years.
I’ll give “Conclave” this: it was better than “Snow White” and a lot shorter than “Wicked.”
Ethics Alarms 
A big section of the older film “The Shoes of the Fisherman” (1968) covered the conclave at which Anthony Quinn’s character (Cardinal Kiril) is elected Pope. Very orthodox and non-“woke”, and a far superior film to “Conclave”, from what I’ve heard about that more recent film. (No desire to watch “Conclave,” either, if it’s as bad as it has been described.)
“Bad?” but…but…it was nominated for “Best Picture”!
I could not resist when I saw the picture above!
I am not planning to watch Conclave either. Perhaps read a good history book. I have “The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister” from John O’Sullivan in my shopping cart, and I am looking at “The Bad Popes” to satisfy my interest in Medieval and Renaissance history.
The internet is screaming “OUTRAGEOUS ans SACRILEGIOUS.” It is a dumb thing for Trump to post, but Trump’s gonna Trump.
jvb
What the hell is he thinking? Sigh. It’s juvenile stunts like this that keep people perpetually ticked, unable to see anything good that this administration does.
*sigh*
Well, I don’t know who made the picture (I don’t think it was Trump), but apparently the White House twitter account did repost it. Not a smart thing to do.
I don’t think Trump made the picture because 1)I think he uses Truth Social rather than twitter, 2) I’ve seen a bunch of different versions of it, with different faces, all with the “RealDonaldTrump moniker, 3)He’s really not dumb. I would certainly be massively disappointed in him if it was him.
Spoiler Alert
For me, it was strong until the last third when the woke stuff went hard. It’s the type of pablum my brother’s husband’s spouts that makes you want to almost laugh at how tedious it has become.
Look at how the “outsider” is such a better Christian than the other folks.
I think if the Pope had been murdered and they would’ve wrapped that into something more interesting, the movie would’ve been much better.
Interesting that Isabella Rosselini chose to be in this film, given that her birth following her famous mother’s affair with her Italian director father devastated Ingrid Bergman’s career with Catholics taking the lead in shunning her. It’s not much of a part, but the occasional actress may have wanted to stick it to the Church.
It sounds to me like getting this movie made was all a way to “stick it to the Church.”
–Dwayne
I watched Conclave the night before the real life conclave convened. I think my opinion of it broadly tracks with yours. If it wasn’t for the screenplay, it would have been a good movie. Shame that modern day Hollywood is incapable of making an entertaining, educational film about how the Catholic Church elects the new Pope.