Conclave (Movie)

Subterms

    Latest story

    113 Shares83 Views

    ‘Conclave’ Is Becoming One of 2024’s Most Memed Movies

    by

    Thanks to characters we recognize from reality TV, the Vatican intrigues have jumped from stuffy prestige drama to the social-media scrum.On its surface, “Conclave,” the Vatican-set film starring Ralph Fiennes, looks like one of the stuffiest of this year’s potential Oscar contenders.Based on a novel by Robert Harris, it chronicles the behind-the-scenes dealings that unfold when the Roman Catholic Church needs to elect a new pope. The cast is mostly male — save for a showstopping turn from Isabella Rossellini — and, with some notable exceptions, largely white. It does not star any hot young things like Timothée Chalamet or Paul Mescal. Instead, it features a murderers’ row of middle-aged character actors. Purely based on subject matter, it seems like the kind of drama that might dominate the Academy Awards in the mid-2000s.And yet it’s on its way to becoming one of the most memed movies of the year.In the weeks since the film’s release, I have been shocked and delighted to find it all over my social media feeds. “Conclave” fever has hit the internet.On X, “Conclave” has been mashed up with “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “Real Housewives.” Devotees have made fan cams, or artfully edited videos, of the “Conclave” cardinals. One is set to the Charli XCX song “Sympathy Is a Knife” featuring Ariana Grande. The refrain “it’s a knife” is synced to the nasty looks the clergymen give one another. The X user Camille Argentar posted it and wrote, “so much drama in this #conclave and i loved every minute of it.”Another fan cam focuses on Ralph Fiennes’s Cardinal Lawrence and the song “Diva” by Beyoncé, implying that Lawrence is the diva here. The TikTok account @catholic.memes25 has made multiple “Conclave” videos, including one using “We Both Reached for the Gun” from the musical “Chicago.”“Sympathy Is a Knife” provided the soundtrack for one “Conclave” fan cam.Focus FeaturesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 113 Shares147 Views

      in Movies

      Watch Ralph Fiennes Deliver a Startling Speech in ‘Conclave’

      by

      The actor plays a cardinal who expresses doubts about his faith and the church in this drama from the director Edward Berger.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.The selection of a new pope is at the center of “Conclave,” the latest drama from the director Edward Berger (“All Quiet on the Western Front”). But while the setting is reverent, the movie finds its narrative propulsion in what its characters try to hide or, in this scene, what they surprisingly decide to express.Ralph Fiennes plays Cardinal Lawrence, the dean of the College of Cardinals, the group that will elect a new pope. The character has operated on the sidelines for much of his time in the church, but something bolder happens here. He addresses the cardinals in a homily that starts formally and ends with personal expressions of doubt.Narrating the scene, Berger said that it sets up Lawrence “as a character to be reckoned with. He delivers this speech that comes from his heart, and other cardinals, especially the ones with ambition to become the next pope, suddenly fear that there’s a new contender in the room.”Read the “Conclave” review.Read about the making of the film.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

    • 175 Shares167 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Conclave’: A Fly on the Wall Inside the Secret Process to Elect a Pope

      by

      A new drama by Edward Berger draws the audience inside this largely hidden tradition. How accurate is it?When a pope dies, cardinals younger than 80 gather at the Vatican to elect his successor in what is known as a conclave. Recent papal elections have offered glimpses of this highly secretive process by allowing television cameras to capture some of the pomp and prayers leading up to the voting.But the world is left hanging the moment a Vatican official solemnly proclaims, “Extra omnes,” Latin for “all out,” and shoos everyone else from the Sistine Chapel before dramatically shutting its immense wooden doors so that the cardinals can begin selecting the next pope.Edward Berger’s new drama, “Conclave,” which opens Friday, catapults audiences back inside the Sistine Chapel for a cinematically rare, if fictionalized, peek at the confidential electoral proceedings of the Roman Catholic Church.“Ancient rituals clashing with modernity,” Berger said, describing the film in a video interview.The film stars Ralph Fiennes as Lawrence, dean of the College of Cardinals, who in the film is responsible for leading the papal election, and Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati and Sergio Castellitto as papal contenders. They are not based on real people but are instead amalgams of contrasting blocs within the church, traditionalist and progressive, that loosely define existing currents. “It’s all politics in the end,” said Robert Harris, who wrote the 2016 novel on which Peter Straughan based his screenplay.“Conclave” is hardly the first film to involve a papal election, and church-based mystery-thrillers, like Dan Brown’s “Angels & Demons” or Raymond Khoury’s “The Last Templar,” have regularly made best-seller lists.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Conclave’ Review: Serpents and Doves Amok in the Vatican

      by

      This film, based on Robert Harris’s 2016 thriller of the same title, centers on a British cardinal (a sensational Ralph Fiennes), and a campaign for a new pope.There are no Kamala Harris or Donald Trump bumper stickers embellishing the vans that occasionally zip through “Conclave.” The current presidential race is the far greater, more consequential nail-biter, yet there’s still much riding on the contest in this sly, sleek election potboiler about the selection of a new Catholic pope. With pomp and circumstance, miles of scarlet cloth and first-rate scene-stealers, the movie snakes through the marbled corridors of Vatican City, pauses in bedchambers as cold as mausoleums and tunnels into the deepest secrets of the human heart. It’s quite the journey, and as unpersuasive as it is entertaining.Vatican stories are Hollywood catnip; see, or maybe don’t, the Dan Brown adaptations (“The Da Vinci Code,” etc.) featuring a worried-looking Tom Hanks racing through conspiratorial thickets. It’s easy to see the attractions of the minuscule city-state, beyond the untold masterpieces crowding it. The movies love stories about shadowy — to outsiders, at any rate — patriarchal, deeply hierarchical, unimaginably wealthy organizations with strict codes of conduct and tremendous power. That may sound a lot like a thumbnail portrait of the Mafia, but it also describes Hollywood. And what the movies especially love are lightly cynical, self-flattering and finally myth-stoking stories that, like this one, evoke the industry itself.“Conclave,” based on Robert Harris’s 2016 Vatican intrigue of the same title, centers on a British cardinal, Lawrence (a sensational Ralph Fiennes). A cleric of uncertain faith if unwavering convictions about everything else, Lawrence has droopingly sad eyes and refined sensitivities, and serves as the dean of the College of Cardinals, the group charged with selecting the pope, who’s just died. Lawrence is on the move when the story opens, hurrying through dark streets and into a brisk drama filled with whispering, scurrying men, one of whom who will be anointed as the new earthly head of the Catholic Church. There are women, too, though mostly there’s Isabella Rossellini, giving great side-eye as Sister Agnes.The cardinals keep whispering and scurrying as the story quickly revs up. Lawrence has been enduring a personal crisis — Harris calls it “some kind of spiritual insomnia” — and had asked the pope (Bruno Novelli) if he could leave Rome for a religious retreat. The pope denied him, telling Lawrence that while some are chosen to be shepherds, others need to manage the farm. With the pope dead, the reluctant Lawrence steps up and begins managing, a duty that involves herding scores of cardinals through the intricacies of the conclave, Latin for a room that can be locked. First, everyone needs to be sequestered until the announcement of “Habemus papam” (“We have a pope”), but until then, it’s every cardinal for himself.The story coalesces around the lead candidates, a nicely balanced group of sincere, stealthy and smooth operators who soon circle Lawrence, their silver tongues wagging and hands wringing as they make their moves. The director Edward Berger and his team (the casting directors very much included) have stuffed the movie with a Daumier-esque collection of smooth and bearded, guarded and open faces. The juicy main cast includes Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati and a wonderful Sergio Castellitto, who plays a wolfish smiler who fulminates about the church’s liberal faction and yearns for the days of Latin Masses. The story could have used more of him and much more of his ominous rage.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      Oscar Contenders Emerge After Film Festival Season

      by

      After film festivals in Venice, Telluride and Toronto, a slate of contenders has emerged. Still, there are few front-runners.Fall foliage may still be weeks away, but the tea leaves of Oscar season are ready to be read.Now that festivals in Venice, Telluride and Toronto have concluded and all but a handful of this year’s contenders have had their first public peek-out, the story is beginning to come into focus. And unlike the last two years, which were dominated by the season-long sweepers “Oppenheimer” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” this race seems much more wide open.Still, two movies already look like significant contenders across the board. One is “Conclave,” a handsomely mounted thriller about sneaky cardinals plotting to pick a new pope. It premiered at Telluride and stars Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci. Some of my fellow journalists sniffed that “Conclave” was just a potboiler with prestige trappings, but I think that’s exactly what will appeal to Oscar voters, who love to reward a rip-roaring yarn as long as it’s well-made with a soupçon of social-issue relevance. Directed by Edward Berger, whose “All Quiet on the Western Front” won four Academy Awards, “Conclave” could be a big hit with audiences, too.If Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” felt like the biggest movie of Venice, that’s in part because of its mammoth 215-minute run time, which comes complete with a 15-minute intermission. There’s no denying the outsize ambition of this film, which was shot on the old-fashioned VistaVision format and chronicles the epic tribulations of a Jewish architect (Adrien Brody) as he emigrates to America after World War II. Expect plenty of awards recognition for Corbet and supporting performers Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones, as well as a surefire Oscar nomination for Brody, who somehow still holds the record for the youngest best-actor winner after taking that Oscar at 29 for “The Pianist.”Two buzzy performances from big stars also debuted in Venice. Daniel Craig looks likely to earn his first Oscar nomination, for Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” in which he plays an American expat besotted with a young man in midcentury Mexico City. And Nicole Kidman won the best actress award at Venice for the erotic “Babygirl,” which also finds her falling for a younger man. (Perhaps age-gap romances are the new Oscar bait.)The Venice trophy will help Kidman build a case for her sixth Oscar nomination (she won for “The Hours”), though she’ll face a surplus of strong lead-actress contenders who also emerged from the fall fests: Angelina Jolie as the opera diva Maria Callas in “Maria”; the Brazilian star Fernanda Torres in “I’m Still Here”; Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a mouthy malcontent in Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths”; and the double act of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore in Pedro Almodóvar’s empathetic “The Room Next Door,” which won the top prize in Venice, the Golden Lion.The director Jason Reitman has crafted a crowd-pleaser in “Saturday Night,” a comedy about the chaotic backstage negotiations that preceded the debut episode of “Saturday Night Live,” though its wide Oct. 11 release will have to go well if the movie hopes to sustain the momentum it earned from Telluride and Toronto. “Joker: Folie à Deux” has the opposite problem: Though this sequel to the billion-dollar hit is certain to make money when it’s released next month, it was coolly received by Venice critics and will face a much more uncertain awards future than its predecessor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      6 Movie Trends from the Toronto International Film Festival

      by

      And other cultural predictions based on movies that played at the Toronto International Film Festival, including Pedro Almodóvar’s latest.After years of pandemic delays and Hollywood strikes, the Toronto International Film Festival, which concludes on Sunday, felt particularly alive this year. Unlike recent years, there was no surefire hit like “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022) or “Oppenheimer” (2023) that premiered in the spring or summer, which added excitement and uncertainty going into awards season. Movies both big and small come to the Canadian city to launch Oscars campaigns, build audiences, announce major debuts and, in some cases, woo buyers that’ll release films over the coming months. But it’s also a great place to see how culture at large is shifting, at least as far as Hollywood is concerned. Here’s where we’re headed.1. We’re all in the mood for love again …Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in “We Live in Time.”Courtesy of TIFFIf the September film season (which also includes major festivals in Venice, Italy, Telluride, Colo., and the upcoming one in New York), has shown something, it’s that many writers and directors are feeling romantic. There’s Sean Baker’s “Anora,” about a sex worker who marries the son of an oligarch, and William Bridges’s “All of You,” which depicts Brett Goldstein (of “Ted Lasso” acclaim) and Imogen Poots as best friends who can’t decide whether to date. Chemistry always wins out, of course, and it’s hard to deny the frisson between Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in John Crowley’s “We Live in Time,” an indie crowd-pleaser that’s ideal for crying your way through on a rainy Sunday afternoon.2. … Or maybe it’s just lust.Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson in “Babygirl.”Courtesy of TIFFDaniel Craig and Drew Starkey in “Queer.”Yannis DrakoulidisToronto was brimming with romantic tragedies, not comedies; perhaps because of ongoing conversations about non-monogamy and open relationships, there were a lot of affairs onscreen, too. The most successful scripts focused on intense, almost unnamable desire, often between two people who know it can’t last: In Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl,” Nicole Kidman plays a powerful executive who gets into a complicated psychosexual mess with her intern; in Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” based on the William S. Burroughs novel (published in 1985), Daniel Craig’s heroin-addled character deals with the hot-and-cold affections of a paramour while traveling through midcentury Mexico City and South America. Both films sizzle, and it’s no coincidence that the actors playing the young objects of these leads’ affections — Harris Dickinson and Drew Starkey, respectively — are proving themselves to be rising talents.3. Another major star? Danielle Deadwyler.Danielle Deadwyler in “The Piano Lesson.”Courtesy of TIFFWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More