Red dominates Edward Berger’s papal potboiler Conclave. The cardinals wear red cassocks and skull caps, and various scarlet hues coat the interiors of the Vatican in which the film’s intrigue unfolds—red walls, red chairs, red carpet, red skirts on the tables. Not since Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers (Viskningar och rop, 1972) have I seen a film so intently sanguine in its color scheme, and it fits. In Catholic symbology, red represents the blood of Christ, but in Conclave it creates an intense air of deceit, manipulation, and treachery, buried secrets and hushed intentions.

With the exception of a few brief, handheld tracking shots that open the film, the entirety of the narrative unfolds within the walls of the Vatican. The inciting incident is the death of the pope, who passes away in his sleep from a heart attack. Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the Dean of the College of Cardinals, is called upon to oversee the election of a new pope, known as the “papal conclave.” One-hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the world travel to Vatican City in Rome, where they are sequestered in the Sistine Chapel of the Apostolic Palace until they have successfully elected a new pope, which requires a two-thirds supermajority. Although grounded in spiritual intent, the papal conclave is understandably a very human endeavor fraught with politics, and it is within that context that the film’s suspense and intrigue is woven.

Early on there are several front runners for the papacy: Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci), who represents the most liberal wing of the church and is one of the most ambitious in his pursuit of the position; Joseph Tremblay (John Lithgow), a Canadian moderate whose seemingly humble air makes him immediately suspicious; Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), a Nigerian who would be the first African pope; and Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a firebrand Italian whose ultra-conservative reactionary views put him in distinction opposition to Bellini. There are a few wild cards, as well, including Lawrence, whose job is to manage the conclave and who has no stated desire to be pope, but whose words and actions are misinterpreted by others as pushing his candidacy. One of those is Vincent Benitez (Carlos Diehz), a soft-spoken Mexican cardinal who has been working in Kabul, Afghanistan. He is an unexpected arrival, as no one outside the pope’s inner circle even knew of his existence. And then there is Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini), the cardinals’ head caterer and housekeeper who would seem to have no particularly important standing except that she is played by Isabella Rossellini, so we know that she is bound to fill a significant role at some point.

As one might imagine, a secretive process involving a roomful of ambitious, powerful men voting to make one of their own the most influential religious figure in the world is fraught with tension, power jockeying, and back-stabbing. The highly formalized nature of the process, guided by stern rules beneath the arched roof of the Sistine Chapel, provides a façade of spirituality and propriety that is regularly punctured with the very human blade of ambition. As the proceedings unfold over several days and many votes, the sins and failures of the various candidates are revealed, often through means that seem to have been engineered by other cardinals who would benefit. One of the driving motivators is the overall direction of the church, as Bellini is determined to keep Tedesco from ascending to the papacy because he fears he would regress the church politically by several hundred years, while Tedesco feels that progressive impulses embodied by men like Bellini and Lawrence are destroying the church’s traditions and credibility. In other words, it is a left-versus-right culture struggle, one that will feel all too familiar to anyone who pays attention to politics and the increasing tribalism of our world.

At the center of the fray is Lawrence, who Ralph Fiennes plays as a man of quiet intensity and sincerity (more than once he confesses to having doubt in both himself and his beliefs). A man of few words, he is nevertheless the lynchpin of the entire process, as he has been put in the uncomfortable position of having to balance the need for propriety and even-handedness with the equally important need to investigate various accusations and suggestions. Fiennes, a masterful actor whose 30 years of stage and screen credits attest to both his virtuosity and his versatility, wrings a great deal of emotion out of his character with body language and his eyes. It is a great, subtle performance that could have easily been lost amid the more openly dramatic characters. The screenplay by Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Wolf Hall) sticks close to the general contours of Robert Harris’s 2016 novel, and Berger, who last helmed the brutal and stirring war drama All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), keeps the pressure constantly ticking up. There isn’t anything particularly grandiose in The Conclave, but it is a good example of how to apply old-fashioned intrigue and character drama to current politics without letting one overwhelm the other.

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