This has been, without doubt, an interesting year for film. The last two years had tough competition and speculation on the Oscar’s race for almost the entire year. Meanwhile, 2024 has been pretty barren in terms of award speculation, with a dry slate of films coming out this year. Dune Part 2 and Challengers have basically been the only movies in real conversation for months. At the same time, potential locks like Megalopolis turned out to be… well, frankly, bad. Enter Conclave.
Conclave is the new film from German-Austrian director Edward Berger. If that name is familiar, it’s because his remake of All Quiet on the Western Front in 2022 was an Academy Award darling, deservedly winning in several categories.
Compared to that film’s sweeping look at the horrors of a World War, Conclave is a much smaller scale story. The film is a fictional story showing a close look at what happens when a new pope is chosen. In what’s shaping up to be a pretty uncompetitive award season (unless the Academy decides to throw The Substance a bone,) Conclave soars to the top of the pile as one of the best films of the year.
The casting of Conclave
The film features an all star cast, including Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini among others. All of them do fantastic in their various positions. Fiennes especially is a standout. He leaves the audience in awe as he transitions from a cardinal doubting his faith to a prime candidate for the position of pope.
Tucci also embodies his character very well. He starts off as an idealist “liberal” cardinal hoping to shift the Catholic church’s position leftward on certain social issues. As the voting continues, however, he slowly is consumed by the concept of having supreme power. His is likely the role that resonates the most, given its similarities to politicians in the real world. Lithgow and Rossellini are as good as always, always a delight to see them.
Production
After the gravitas of All Quiet, Conclave is comparatively trite. The characters aren’t fighting a world war or anything. But the way everything is conveyed lends this story the same level of heightened tenseness. Tucci proclaiming “this is a war” might be a bit on the nose, but that really is the way it feels. Berger uses his signature long takes to create a sense of paranoia, where he frames the characters in a way that makes them feel incredibly isolated.
The costumes are impeccable as well, but my favorite things visually from this movie are the sets and locations. They’re all so towering and grand that it’s difficult to imagine these spaces existing in real life. Yet, as Berger described in a Q&A following the screening, they filmed entirely in real locations in and around the Vatican and built a replica of the Sistine Chapel for use in the film. A true visual marvel.
Inspirations
I had the honor of getting to interview Berger on the red carpet at the Montclair Film Festival. In our conversation, Berger cited noir-esque mystery dramas like Klute and All the President’s Men as inspirations on the film. I totally get it. The whole film is essentially a political thriller, but rather than the leadership of one country, the characters are vying for leadership over one of the world’s biggest religions.
A more recent film that Conclave bore a striking similarity to was Rian Johnson’s Knives Out. If I can ramble for a second, part of what those films do expertly is balance a wide cast of completely different characters, all tied together by one unified goal. Whether it be solving a murder or finding out who inherited Christopher Plummer’s fortune, there’s always one central goal that unites these characters, ranging from social media influencers to professional detectives. Conclave is similar in that regard, balancing a variety of unique cardinals revolving around the central goal of becoming the new pope.
On the topic of Knives Out, one thing I definitely wasn’t prepared for was how FUNNY this movie is. The amount of insane hijinks the characters try to pull to become pope is delightfully chaotic to watch. The film also takes a shockingly high amount of twists and turns to keep the ride engaging. Many of these twists seem to come out of left field, but honestly, I think that’s part of why they work. Political scandals that can ruin careers and aspirations don’t always have massive leads, with trails of clues to follow to a logical conclusion. The seeming randomness of these scandals popping up in the film only grounds it further in realism.
Oscars Speculation
As of writing, we are still several months away from the announcement of any nominations for the 2025 Academy Awards. Despite that, I would like to take a moment to speculate on possible nominations that Conclave could expect to see.
I think it’s an easy shoe-in to not only be nominated for but win Best Picture. As great as it is, it is a pretty safe film when all’s said and done. This certainly could appeal to an Academy that overall doesn’t tend to reward big swing movies. Sure, Everything Everywhere All At Once swept the awards a couple of years ago, but Oppenheimer returned things to the status quo last year. I’d also expect some acting nominations, likely for Fiennes, Rossellini and either Tucci or Lithgow. Cinematography, Production Design, Costumes, and Screenplay campaigns aren’t out of the question either.
Overall, Conclave is easily one of the best films of 2024. Equally serious and sarcastic, it strikes a perfect balance for a satisfying thriller. Despite the potential stuffiness of its premise, it really does offer something for anyone who likes mysteries to enjoy. Seek it out if you can!
Conclave comes to theaters in the U.S. on October 25th, 2024.
