Conclave spoilers

Seems like everyone I know watched Conclave this week, so I did too. I only watch maybe two or three movies a year. Partly because I lack the attention span, partly because I worry it’s a dangerous habit to form.

I didn’t love this movie as much as other people seem to, but I can concede that it was a very visually pretty movie and it has some very good memeable moments, such as the guy sitting on the bench and checking his phone. Everything below is petty criticism.

I thought the ending was kind of obvious. I could see that there was some sort of “surprise” coming with that guy, though I didn’t predict the exact particulars. But I think it’s cool that they went for an issue (intersex) that has less visibility in mainstream media than conventional trans, abortion, etc. stuff that are more common targets of “we need more representation” discourse.

The most disappointing thing about the movie, though, was just how incoherent the plot was. They didn’t really do a good job of setting the scene or showing you the rules of how the conclave works, they just kind of cut arbitrarily back and forth between scenes of them eating, casting ballots, and having secret hallway conversations, which leaves the viewer wondering if they are ever going to have some sort of formal deliberation (as any election would) or if perhaps the point is to not deliberate at all and just cast votes as instructed by God to be sacred or whatever.

But then, like 75% of the way through the film, they randomly decide to have a group meeting after all in this auditorium—I guess we’re doing meetings now—where Hitler guy makes his “these animals” speech and then Kabul guy makes his heartfelt speech that suddenly, magically convinces everyone to vote for him. This scene is a joke to anyone who has attended a meeting of any sort, ever. Hitler guy would not just shut up after his speech and let the other guy own him, he would interject constantly and be like “If I can just add one more comment, on that,” etc. He isn’t really playing to win. And the idea that this late entrant from Kabul would win the election just for having made a nice speech after the entire rest of the movie was hammering in the importance of having a good character and reputation and relationships was difficult to believe.

Another gripe: Protagonist, I think his name is Lawrence, has zero of the requisite tact or chess instincts to be even a middle manager in corporate America, let alone a cardinal in the Catholic church. As soon as anyone tells him a rumor about someone, he goes immediately to the accused party and says “I heard that x, y, and z”—showing his entire hand of cards and tipping the guy off so that he can begin damage control. Take it from me, that is not how you handle a workplace dispute.

Also, all the accents sounded hella fake.

Also, the preview hyped up the idea that this movie would show how the nuns are really the ones running the show behind the scene, but in actuality I don’t think the movie even passes the Bechdel test.