While I will admit to not caring much about the inner workings of the Catholic Church, especially involving its hierarchy and Papal intricacies, I will also admit that a good movie can be made of just about any subject.  In fact, one already has on this subject: The Shoes of the Fisherman, back in 1968.  You can find my three star review of that film in the “Movies Worth Rediscovering” section of this very website.  Fifty-six years later, evidently the time has come to explore the Vatican’s process of selecting a new Pontiff once again.  And this time, the resulting movie is even better.

Edward Berger’s drama begins with the death of a Pope and follows the process to replace him.  That process centers on Dean Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the reluctant choice to administrate the protocols necessary for one hundred and eight holy men to choose a new leader.  Some want the post; others do not, but are pressed to compete for it.  As the votes are taken candidacies rise and fall, secrets are uncovered and revealed and men’s hearts and souls are tested.  It plays like a play (it was originally a Robert Harris novel), but it is wonderfully cinematic, too, and it never resorts to overly familiar melodrama to make its points.

One of its aspects I really respect is its rejection of tradition.  Lawrence eventually makes some decisions (some by choice, some forced by circumstance) that fly in the face of the Vatican’s most valued traditions.  While the film respects the Catholic traditions and portrays them as accurately as possible, it also carries an attitude that in our modern world, some aspects must be changed to adapt to the times, that tradition alone isn’t strong enough to keep the old ways in perpetual power and control.  In some ways Lawrence allows things to spiral past his own control, but that works in the drama’s favor, emphasizing his point that the process is really a human one, as well as somebody else’s point that one can and will never find a perfect candidate, one without flaws of any kind.

Being a drama about the politics of the Vatican, it is also true that this story can be read as a polemic about our own modern political divisions.  One candidate is ultra-conservative, almost radically so.  Another is much more centrist, but suspected of some corruption.  Another is a black Cardinal, a color that some of the others do not want to see ascending to the Holy See.  Others are of varying shades of strength, propriety and holiness.  The film makes its choice while trying to balance all those approaches, egos and positions.  Actually, its strongest statement comes when one Cardinal remarks that the candidate who should be chosen is the one who doesn’t want the position.  The ones who want it are the dangerous ones.  Amen to that.  ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2.  24 November 2024.