The film begins with Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) arriving at the pope’s deathbed to find other ambitious cardinals there before him and who have already started manoeuvring to be considered the next pontiff. It transpires that Lawrence has been deeply burdened by his own crisis of faith and by a suspicion that there are dark forces at work within the Catholic Church but, sadly (for him), the pope dies without granting Lawrence his wish to resign as dean of the College of Cardinals, and also without being able to reveal what he knew of dark secrets concerning one or more of these candidates… which means that a corrupt figure may be about to become pope. To complicate matters, after the pope’s sudden death, Lawrence (as dean of the College of Cardinals) finds himself saddled with the onerous responsibility of overseeing the assembly of all the cardinals of the Catholic church to elect the new pope.
The film is entirely fictional and yet, in many ways, feels thoroughly believable. On the face of it, the elaborate, archaic election process might seem a relatively boring subject for a 120-minute film and yet, with all the manoeuvring and political ambition, I found it marvellously tense and utterly compelling.
It’s
beautifully-filmed and, as one would expect in such a subject matter, bathed
with resplendent surroundings and extravagant vestments.
Ralph
Fiennes is quite, quite brilliant as the self-effacing Cardinal Lawrence – who finds
himself as unofficial cheerleader for one of the progressive cardinals in the
voting rounds, but, to his dismay, he sees his own vote count increasing each
time. Should he have the humility to accept such a potential destiny? At the
same time, he is aware of corrupt conspiracies which, with the burden of
authority, he is unable to expose…
I think I’ll leave it there… (*no
spoilers!*).
I thought it was a marvellous film and
think you should see it.
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