Conclave Is a Thriller About the Only Institution That Still Believes in Secrecy
Edward Berger’s Conclave is not really about Catholicism. It’s about institutions — what they conceal, what they protect, and what happens when the machinery of legitimacy meets a secret it cannot process. That it’s set inside the Vatican is almost incidental. The College of Cardinals could be a corporate board, a politburo, a supreme court. The dynamic is identical.
Ralph Fiennes plays Cardinal Lawrence, tasked with managing a papal election after the sudden death of the Pope. What follows is a locked-room procedural that Berger shoots with the restraint of a man who knows exactly how much atmosphere he doesn’t need. The Sistine Chapel does the heavy lifting. The script, adapted from Robert Harris’s novel, does the rest.
The film’s intelligence is structural. Every revelation lands like a moved chess piece — not a surprise exactly, but an inevitability that felt hidden until it didn’t. Harris and screenwriter Peter Straughan understand that conspiracy is less interesting than complicity. Nobody here is cartoonishly corrupt. Everyone is protecting something they’ve decided matters more than honesty.
The final act has divided viewers. It shouldn’t. Berger isn’t making a statement about gender or doctrine — he’s exposing the foundational absurdity of any institution that grounds authority in ancient rules while quietly rewriting them in private. The ending is the point.
Conclave is the rare film that treats its audience as capable of sitting with ambiguity. In a season crowded with awards bait that announces its own importance, it simply proceeds — coldly, precisely, and without apology.
The Church has survived worse revelations. The question the film leaves open is whether that’s a comfort or an indictment.