conclave (Streaming now on Peacock, in addition to VOD services like Amazon Prime Video) offers the hot papal election action you didn’t know you needed. Inevitable Oscar nominee Ralph Fiennes and similarly hard-hitting co-stars Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow slip into their hottest frock coats and caps to play cardinals in the midst of a heated battle for ultimate power as pontiff, with Isabella Rossellini considered the most sour Well, this is the page of your worst mid-century Catholic school flashback nightmares. Adaptation of Richard Harris’s 2016 page-turner novel, directed by Edward Berger (four-time Oscar winner). Things are quiet on the Western Front) ensures that a film consisting entirely of heavily dressed men conversing in antiseptic rooms of the Vatican is far more entertaining than you’d ever expect.

CONCLAVE: STREAM OR SKIP?

The essentials: As the saying goes: The Pope is dead – long live the Pope. Easier said than done! Just ask Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes) who was very close to the Pope and tried to resign but the Pope wouldn’t let it and now Lawrence believes it was because the Pope knew he was dying and Lawrence as Dean of the College of Cardinals wanted to oversee the election of the new pope. It’s a burden, but Lawrence is committed to carrying out his duty as dutifully as befits the manager of a process so secretive that we can all only IMAGINE how dramatic and sweaty it would be in these locked rooms must under all those heavy coats.

Inventory: There are 108 Cardinals traveling to the Conclave from all over the place. Any incumbent cardinal can be appointed pope. They take part in a series of votes until they reach a two-thirds majority. Unsuccessful votes are signaled to the outside world by black smoke rising from a chimney and white smoke when a new pope has been elected. Four Cowl brothers are leading in this race: Bellini (Tucci), a progressive liberal, and Tremblay (Lithgow), a moderate, from their hometown of Vatican. Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) is an extremely conservative traditionalist from Venice. And Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati) is a Nigerian conservative who is a fifth more centrist than Tedesco. Benitez (Carlos Diehz), who travels from Kabul to crash the party, adds even more tension to the drama. No one knew Benitez existed except the Pope, who apparently secretly arranged his participation from his deathbed. Curious!

That’s a broad statement about Lawrence having a lot of egos to contend with. And of course intrigue: People say that the Pope asked Tremblay to GTFO before his death. Others say that the Pope said many things before his death, and these things almost always speak to the claimant’s ascension to the Pope. Before the conclave, Lawrence gives an opening speech that takes up the whole notion of certainty, just as men are about to write the names of potential popes on paper in permanent ink in the process of electing a man to eternal sainthood. Does Lawrence secretly want to become Pope himself? We spend a lot of time with him, but we can’t be sure, probably because he isn’t sure himself, which illustrates his point about certainty so nicely, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile, while Tedesco, Bellini, Adeyemi and Tremblay argue – ideologically, since I’m pretty sure everyone had to give up their weapons and cell phones when going through security in the Conclave – everyone was even equipped with a wand and everything – and insisted on the Pope when he told them things that no one can verify because the Pope is dead, we and Lawrence begin to wonder what is going on with Benitez. And what’s going on with the outside world starting to invade the Sequester because things are literally exploding in Rome? And what about Sister “Of course her name is Agnes” Agnes (Rossellini) because her brow is so furrowed and she seems to know things. So Lawrence has to play Catholic Batman or Hercule Poirot and snoop around and find out things. Juicy things. Things that could really shake up the conclave, like little metaphorical bombs perhaps. Something like that.

What films will it remind you of?: conclave is like The two popes hits Notice or Knife outwith one shot 12 angry men (108 angry cardinals?).

Performance worth seeing: conclave is an absolute record for Fiennes, whose filmography has now grown to 30 records? Why hasn’t he won an Oscar yet? He hasn’t even been nominated since English patient! Special mention goes to Rossellini, who gets a scene where she steps into frame and throws a hand grenade (note: it’s not a hand grenade in the literal sense, that’s just a metaphor), which possibly gives her her first ever film (! ) Oscar nods.

Memorable dialogue: “No sensible person would want the papacy,” Bellini says to himself, because he wants the papacy.

Gender and skin: Oh God, no!

Our opinion: conclave is clearly designed to hold up a mirror to the wicked political divisions of today’s world, but honestly that’s completely obvious and the least compelling thing about the film. It’s far more compelling than a superficial to middling snippet of Vatican intrigue, with its many flourishes and hard links in the plot, taking place in a millennia-old tradition that is, for those of us who live in the outside world (that of the cynics lives, is quite mysterious). what I would like to define as “reality”). Berger takes us inside the marble walls where a highly secret process is taking place in which old men vie for great power, and I didn’t believe it for a second. This is praise, not criticism. My idea is that real papal conclaves consist of endless, boring quotations from Scripture and endless mumblings about consistency and responsibility, rather than the underhanded soap operas of this movie, which are extremely entertaining.

Thanks to his emphasis on details, Berger immerses us in the setting and action – the sobriety of the setting, a figure who blurs when he touches the late Pope’s dirty glasses, the rituals of the cardinals dressing for official negotiations, and the Nuns who prepare meals for important men. The sound design is rich and enveloping, doors close in echoey halls, and Lawrence’s heavy breathing adds to the story’s growing tension.

A story that, mind you, tests our suspension of disbelief. You’ll still be swept along, thanks to the engaging and nuanced performances that elevate the endeavor considerably. Fiennes is simply magnificent as a man wrestling with what is right and what is wrong, and that includes his own beliefs. You can almost smell the duplicity in Tucci and Lithgow’s characters; They have excellent command of the subtler arts of weaseldom. Msamati and Castellitto are the secret weapons here – the former enjoys a rich emotional arc and the latter is slyly hilarious as a steamy, bigoted asshole. And Rossellini is that super-Secret weapon that exerts highly concentrated hostility as a woman who seems to be really sick of these men’s bullshit. I’ll be damned if conclave is not one of the most compelling religious thrillers I have ever seen.

Our call: White smoke! STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.