No one has drinks thrown at them conclave. Nobody is beaten. I don’t think anyone is even called mean names. Maybe this should all be self-evident for a film about the election of a new pope. But people talked about it conclave— the award-winning Vatican intrigue drama now streaming on Peacock — as if it were some kind of high-octane reality show. I have to stop this. conclave doesn’t deserve his reputation as a drama queen.

I suppose it’s just a matter of expectations. When you went in conclave Even if you know nothing about it, I imagine you might be charmed by its depiction of the inherent drama of a group of robed men voting for the next leader of an extremely powerful religious institution. My mistake is that I was exposed to memes about it conclave before I saw the film itself. And when these memes compared the movie to Mean Girls and the Real Housewives Franchise, I believed them. I went in conclave I’m looking forward to a film full of pettiness and deceit and maybe even a cup of wine. I left thinking the thing wasn’t nearly bitchy enough.

This scandal could be bigger than the twist ending. The New York Times, Vulture and other publications have gone out of their way to write about it conclave revels (and finds great meme fodder) in its chaotic, curious cardinals. But does it? Is it “chaotic” that the more liberal cardinals want to stop the more conservative cardinals from taking power? Or is it the most boring possible definition of politics? I was always waiting for more betrayal or no betrayal at all, for more underhanded maneuvers. The film’s machinations aren’t overly emotional or personal, and perhaps don’t need to be, but those are the things that make reality television. The film is full of missed opportunities for diva antics. When John Lithgow’s character, Cardinal Tremblay, suggests at one point that a character who has said something damaging about him cannot be trusted because he drank more, I sighed. A Real Housewife would have known how to add some spice to this accusation.

Fans of the film seem strangely determined to praise an alternative, better version of it that only exists in their heads. I felt like a madman when I read the Times and described Tremblay elsewhere as “mortified when (Isabella) Rossellini’s sister Agnes calls him trash.” I went back to the scene in question, and that The most important thing that Sister Agnes says in it is: “She was actually here at the express request of Cardinal Tremblay.” The subtlety of this revelation, the way that it is not a bombastic one The remarkable thing about it is not an accusation but a simple fact, but of course we call it “reading for dirt”.

I can accept that some of the joy is gone conclave is an exaggeration – as the Times admits, “It’s amusing to get really excited about a movie about priests” – but then the paper hits us with the words: “These society men are just as messy and disorganized as the backstabbers of the Reality television and the Prime Minister. “Sometimes soap operas.” Show me the cardinal again, who could be on a par with Kristen Doute, and then we can talk. I imagine you might be tempted to say that it was conclave” when, in which Vanderpump Rules In-universe, Doute once orchestrated bringing a woman from a man’s past into a closed environment to humiliate him, but she did it purely out of spite, and that’s the missing ingredient: these cardinals are motivated by principles, which is a lot is less fun.

The conclave Everyone’s talking about it, it sounds like a great movie. I’d love to see a wonderfully bitchy drama about the election of a new pope; sign me up. Unfortunately, people seem to get so excited about the idea of ​​a fun, intrigue-filled movie about cardinals that they don’t consider that this isn’t actually the movie Edward Berger made. That’s almost insulting conclave is streaming on Peacock of all places, along with so many Bravo shows that no one can stop comparing it to. These Cardinals wouldn’t last five minutes at a time Real Housewives Reunion.