Pop Culture Happy Hour - Conclave

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Pope Francis' death not only led to an outpouring of remembrances. It also unleashed a new wave of memes from the Oscar-nominated movie Conclave. It tells a very fun and very fictional story of the secretive process by which a pope is replaced. It's a twisty political thriller, it's a tense jury drama, and it's got some strong commentary on the state of the Catholic Church. Conclave stars Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini, and it's available to rent or stream at home.Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture.To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Pope Francis's death not only led to an outpouring of remembrances, it also unleashed a new wave of memes from the Oscar-nominated movie Conclave. It tells a very fun and very fictional story of the secretive process by which a pope is replaced. It's a twisty political thriller. It's a tense jury drama, and it's got some strong commentary on the state of the Catholic Church. It stars Ray Fines, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini, and is available to rent or stream at home. I'm Aisha Harris.

And I'm Stephen Thompson. Today on NPR's Pope Culture Happy Hour, we are revisiting our conversation about conclave. Joining us today is Waylon Wong. She's the co-host of NPR's Daily Economics Podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money. Hey, Waylon. Hi, the Lord be with you. And also with you. Also with us is Andrew Lapin.

He's a senior reporter for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the host of the podcast, Radioactive, the Father Coughlin story. Welcome back, Andrew. Hey, great to be here. It is great to have you. So, conclave is based on Robert Harris's 2016 novel of the same name. In both the book and the film, we learn that the fictional Pope has just died, setting into motion the complex process of choosing and naming a replacement. Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ray Fines, is managing the process of assembling a conclave of cardinals. Those cardinals are carefully sequestered until they can come to an agreement about which of them will become the new Pope.

The options include the possibly treacherous Cardinal Tremblay, played by John Lithgow. I wonder if you really are, so very reluctant to have the chalice pass to you. There's Cardinal Bolini, played by Stanley Tucci. He's openly liberal and isn't so much interested in becoming Pope, as he is hell-bent on blocking the candidacy of Cardinal Tedesco, played by Sergio Castellito. Of course, there are more candidates than that, and plenty of scandals, surprises, and dark horses pop up along the way. Conclave was directed by Edward Berger, who also did the Oscar-winning remake of All Quiet on the Western Front. Aisha Harris, I'm going to start with you.

What did you think of Conclave? Look, this was not my first choice for a movie to talk about at first. I thought, oh, man, Popes, Vatican, and it was giving to me it felt like a very 2000s, 2010's Miramax kind of down-the-middle movie that is absolutely going to rock up a ton of Oscars. whether or not it deserves it or not, I was going into this movie, Hemming and Hawing, and my arms folded. Turns out, this was actually quite enjoyable. It's a great little, little piece that's surprisingly funnier than I anticipated, and I think funny on purpose in ways that are kind of dark and weird, and there's kind of a repetitive recurring motif that I think is very lighthearted and fun that I think we will get into, even though this is obviously like a very

serious subject matter. But overall, I thought the performances were really great. I had a fun time, And at its heart, it's kind of a 12 Angry Men meets a mystery type of story. Yes to this movie with some caveats. But I'm sure we'll get into that later. Okay. How about you, Andrew? Yeah, I had a lot of fun with this one. I see Aisha's 12 Angry Men and I'll raise you that, to me, it felt like Columbo in the Vatican.

Like, Ray find just kind of walking around to each of the Cardinals and holding up a document and going, just one more thing. Just one more thing. And I'm fascinated by the Catholic Church as an institution, and I think it's a very good setting for this kind of twisty, terny political thriller where everyone has a secret and there are different factions and different visions for what they want the future to look like. And so there's this also inherently dramatic setting of the conclave where all the characters have to be sequestered from the outside world. And I think the movie makes a really good use of this setting. so it's claustrophobic without feeling too suffocating. But what I really appreciate it is that on the one hand, it has something that it really wants to say, that it wants to communicate about the Catholic Church and about its place in modern society.

But it's not too heavy-handed. It does have those moments of levity and fun, which I really appreciated and which I think make this whole thing go down really smooth. So it's like a smart, tense drama, and I was here for it. Nice. How about you, Waylon? It's funny. I went into this movie the opposite as Ayesha, where I was. Amped for this movie, because I'll tell you what, my secret favorite movie is Angels and Demons.

And I was like, I love a Vatican drama. And I love gawking at the, like, grotesque pageantry of the Vatican. And this movie, you've got your wax seals. You have exquisite stationary. You've got ribbons. So much ritual. Yes. So much ritual.

And it's so baroque and bonkers and is so far divorced from any action. actual theology, and I love the camp of it. And I think this movie leans into that and has a lot of fun. So I was dialed in. I had a great time. And it really flew by for me. And I really loved the performances. All these cardinals and their little red beanies hissing at each other in corridors.

It's all delicious. If you want to defeat the Desco. This is a conclave, Aldo. It's not a war. It is a war. And you have to commit to a side. I will say that ultimately there wasn't enough of a satisfying payoff for me. And so I felt like the whole was worth a little less than the sum of its parts.

But the parts themselves, super, super fun and enjoyable. And I did get that kind of Angels and Demons energy from it that I really liked. Nice. Yeah, I came down pretty similarly. I dug this movie quite a bit. And when I think about, I mean, Wayland, you mentioned the sum of the parts. I mean, it's almost impossible for this movie for the whole. of this movie to be greater than the sum of the parts

because the parts are jury thriller, political thriller, intrigue, intrigue, intrigue. You mentioned the ritual of it all. This is a gorgeous looking film. I really appreciate this really could have been kind of a feast of overacting. You know, you get a whole bunch of hams to kind of come in and give speeches at each other.

You know, there are vigorous debates about faith and the church and the factions within the church, I appreciated how political the process is and felt like just the nature of that is commentary onto itself, but I didn't feel like there was a need or an attempt to really overly underline those points. You're just watching a political process payout,

even though it's kind of not really supposed to be, right? They're not supposed to be campaigning. It is supposed to sort of be like, you are choosing a figure who is a major religious figure, and yet there are so, I say yet, and there are so many layers of politics underneath the surface of that, the direction the church has taken, the church's stance on different issues. What this movie is not, and I'm going to praise this movie so much for being what it's not, which is sorkenie.

This movie is not, this is not an Aaron Sorkin style, thunder. men of importance give speeches back and forth at each other. And for that, I really enjoyed and appreciated it. I hesitate to call a movie with this many twists subtle. It's not. There's one twist, I think three twists before the end, where I was like, oh, come on. But at the same time, I hung with it the entire time. Well, that's part of what I was kind of alluding to with it being funnier than I anticipated, is that, first of all,

there are lots of twists, mini twists. And the way these twists come about is that Cardinal Lawrence, the Ray F. finds character, he has his sort of right-hand man, O'Malley, who's played by Brian F. O'Bern. And that guy is sort of like getting the dirt on each, you know, individual cardinal who's up for the Pope role. And each time, O'Malley is coming back to him and he's like, one more thing. And it's just like, it's really fun. It feels almost as if this is like a Shakespeare, like this is the, character who's like, but may I just interject, I also have feelings about this, this new

bomb I just dropped on you. Like, I just need to give you. And I think that's part of what, to me, made this so weirdly fun and also helped us, like, to your point, Stephen, about it not being subtle. It's, it's really not. I think the closest that it comes to being sorkenie is the Stanley Tucci character because he is the guy who keeps saying, we can't go back. Like, this other Pope who is like, and again, this is where the very clear Edward Burger politics were trying to place this in time, and we are in a prime election season right now. It's like, we can't go back. Like, this is terrible.

If Tedesco becomes Pope, he will undo 60 years of progress. You talk as if you're the only alternative. But Adaiami has the win behind him. Adaiami. Adaiami, the man who believes that homosexuals should be sent to prison in this world and hell in the next. Ademi is not the answer to anything. And you know it. It is underlined.

Let's be clear. Stanley Tucci is the one doing the most of the underlining. Exactly. He even makes it. Nixon reference, you know, so if you need any subtext, made text, like, you got Stanley 2G providing that. Yes, it's underlined, but it's not double underlined. How about that?

Right, right. So you appreciate the restraint. I did really like the Cardinal Lawrence character. He's kind of like, on one hand, this, like, beleaguered HR manager trying to run a very important meeting that cannot be an email. You actually do need a meeting. He feels he's been miscast. Who feels he's been miscast?

And then he has to turn into like internal affairs investigator. And that's kind of fun too. I wish we had seen him do a little bit more detective work. Do you know what I mean? But, you know, I think that's a minor quibble. O'Malley was doing all the detective work off screen. I kind of wanted to follow O'Malley because he's the one that is like talking to like the guy down at the docs or whatever, like law and order style. And we don't get to see that.

But I did really like the photocopy scene. There's this really fun. So great. There's a great cut to a photocopier. Photocopy scene with Cardinal Lawrence and Isabella Rossellini's character. And it made me think about, like, other great photocopy scenes in cinema. And I thought of, like, the firm. And I was like, we were like tense photocopy scenes.

These are great. A good documents movie is worth its weight in gold. Similar to that, like any moment where that sort of ancient pageantry of the church was running up against modern technology was a moment I really enjoyed. there's this great little bit early on when the conclave is just starting and they're trying to hurt everybody inside and they can't hear what's going on in the outside world

and there's a shot of just a bunch of corded phones in a pile that they've clearly been ripped from the walls of the Vatican and then they just cut to this elderly cardinal who's just sitting on his iPhone he's clearly about texting someone before he's going to go into the tunnel and it's such a fun little moment it's so great. I'd love to know why are photocopiers good

cinema, but like modems aren't. I think it's because they're so fallible. They always break, right? Like, Cardinal Lawrence literally encounters some kind of inscrutable error. And it's like, no, but I really got to make these count me. So you're like dependent on this incredibly fallible technology, but you're on a deadline and you got to do it before anyone discovers you. It's great.

It's like the same way that a vote, like the one that they have in Conclave, is naturally great tension and the way that a jury decision is naturally great tension in any kind of pop culture. I feel like a photocopier does the same trick. We should say we don't actually know how the conclave works in real life. This is like their best guess. It's sort of what is happening behind the scenes. And I appreciated that. I think that adds to the sense of, oh, we're peeking behind the curtain, but it's all a little

bit absurd and all that stuff. It's so great because it's just a little bit removed. from just total seriousness. Yeah. It looks like they're launching a nuclear sub when they flip the switch for the white smoke. Oh, yeah. It's amazing. Yeah, almost like they need multiple cardinals to flip the switch at the same time.

Turn your key for the white smoke. With regard to the white smoke and also just the photocopier of it all, I really appreciated those little details that really sort of highlight this pull, this tension, between the old world or like the way things used to be done in the new world. Like, yes, I know photocopiers still exist, but for the most part, like, I haven't used one in a very long time. I don't know how many people who are even still working in offices necessarily use them all that often. Don't send me emails, please. But there's a moment where the sort of like evil Tedesco Cardinal, he's seen vaping.

If I'm, did anyone else see this? Yes. Okay, yes. Okay, thank you. And I was just like, this is hilarious, like this old man. Because when you think of it, at least when I think of vaping, I think of like, Anyone under the age of 30 usually is like vaping. Yeah, what flavor do you think Tedesco is vaping?

I don't know. I have no idea. Blue raspberry. I feel like vaping has become the new shorthand for this character is evil. Yeah, it really has. Like, you've never seen a good person vape in a movie. And I loved that little detail. I also, one thing I would have loved to see more of is Isabella Rossellini.

Although she does kind of, she has a great moment, which is also the same scene where I noticed that he was vaping, but she does have, like, a great moment where she kind of drops a bomb in front of all of these cardinals and does so with this, like, little smirk. She's just like, I'm here. Like a glimmer in her eye. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think the movie does sort of get into, I think, in an interesting way, this idea that women are still on the outside of all of this decision making. The nuns are all making the food for them. They're mostly seen but not heard.

It's just, like, those little details. I mean, you could argue, are you. just like reinforcing these things. But I do think as little Isabella Rosalini as there was a sister Agnes, like when she does show up, she shows up, she goes hard. And I was like, this is, this is great. I struggle with that dynamic too, because I feel like if you're going to have Isabella Rosalini in your movie as a sassy nun, you want to use her.

And so she was waiting the wings maybe a little too long for my taste, even though that does help the moment she does appear really stand out. But then, you know, there's like another moment involving a nun character that I think kind of short changes her and her perspective. And this is something that the film is, yeah, torn between making a commentary about the fact that this is a boys club. And as you said, Aisha, sort of unfortunately reinforcing that dynamic. And, of course, the divisions that they depict in the film not only parallel our own

politics, but also the politics of the Catholic Church. There are these factions that have divided. There are people in real life undermining the Pope. Like, in many ways, the real drama at the Catholic Church is even. and more absurd than kind of what you get here. It gives the film permission to touch on some of those darker and more political aspects of its subject matter without being too beholden to the record, so to speak. Well, and there's a sense sometimes of like, wow, some elements of this are really craven. But I can also, as a viewer, sit and wonder, I wonder if they're actually worse.

Yeah. Like, it is definitely interested in giving voice to doubt. It's willing to give voice to suspicion about this institution, but it's not trying to necessarily undermine that institution either, right? Like, it still seems to be coming at it from a general place of there are people in this institution who are operating in good faith. I think that is maybe part of what I ultimately found a little bit dissatisfying about this movie is I wanted it to have a little bit more to sit. say about faith and doubt or about the relevance of the Catholic Church or about the ambitions of men, you know, who end up in these very powerful positions. And I feel like the movie introduced a bunch of those ideas and then ultimately did not

have a whole lot to say about it that takes us beyond what we have explored in other films, including in Angels and Demons, L.O.L., which is actually about, you know, the interplay between faith and science. And, you know, I'm like, did Angels and Demons, like, explore these ideas the same slash a little better? Like, they're not, you know, this movie, despite having many more trappings of a prestige film than Angels and Demons, you know, it's much more of like an Oscar-type film. I don't actually think it offers that much more thematically, you know, to chew on than something like Angels and Demons, which is a very straightforward popcorn movie.

I do think the evolution of the Ray Fine's character gets at some of what you're talking about Wayland? Because there's this interesting dynamic where, you know, he says early on that he is a man who has lost his faith. And then there's this through line where people keep telling him, but you want to be Pope, right? Like, you secretly want to be Pope. And he has to keep, you know, he keeps denying it, denying it. And there's a, I don't want to give too much away, but there's a really interesting turn at one point in the film where the character has to ask himself, wait, do I want to be Pope? Is that something I want? And Ray Fines plays it really well. And it also speaks to the allure of power.

within this institution, even among people who seemingly have all of these doubts about it. Yeah. To your point, Waylon, about angels and demons, to be honest, I don't think I ever saw the movies. I'll lend you my Blu-ray. I'll watch it at home. Well-worn. I read the books when that was like the only book that seemed to be at every airport ever, like back in the day. So I do remember reading the books. And those are very explicitly fantasy. I did find that this movie towards the end felt like its own kind of. of fantasy. I'm more subdued kind of fantasy or like a sort of fan fiction in a way of like someone who might like have these ideals of what the Catholic Church from the outside who like this is what it should be. These are the things we should be wrestling with. And then here's the

ultimate outcome of all of that. And I was like, oh, this is, I mean, this is kind of silly, but also kind of cool. But at the same time, I was laughing by the end of it, multiple people in my screening, including these two ladies who were actually giggling through the whole time. They were probably in their 50s or 60s. They were having the time of their life. They were talking to the screen. And then like, then like, Twits or Twist, they're like, ah. I made the same noise at one point. So, like, in a way, it does feel kind of fantastical. But again, this is, this is one of the nice things about, A, not having too much information as to what actually goes down. So your, your imagination can run wild. And B, it's just like, you aren't beholden to like trying to get everything

absolutely right. You're trying to get at something that's sort of true, or at least like has an essence of like truth when it comes to what we imagine people within the Vatican and outside of there are wrestling with. And I don't know. There's something cool about that, I think. I also want to say, Edward Berger directed All Quiet on the Western Front a couple of years. It was very heavily Oscar nominated at won a bunch of Oscars, including for Best Score. Yes, from Volker Bertelman, who also records under the name Haushka, and I love Haushka's music, but I did not love Volker Bertelman's score for Allquiet on the Western Front, which I found so inceptiony and just like,

you know, in this kind of oppressive way. And to me, like, this is a superb kind of old-style, big, sweeping, cinematic movie score, and I really dug it. I have that in my notes, actually. I loved the sort of plucking strings that keep popping up. It's almost scored kind of like a folk horror movie that this could have been, you know, hereditary or something in a good way. The music adds this nice air of menace throughout. I think the length and the format really works for this too because I was thinking there is an alternate reality where this was turned into an eight to ten part prestige TV series. Oh, thank you. And I would have hated it.

It would have gone on it. on and on, we would have read 10,000 words on, like, Vulture about, like, what is the ending going to be and where is this going? And I would have been bored to tears and really mad. Yeah. But this is two hours. It flies by. There's not a wasted minute in it. And I'm like, in terms of return on investment, excellent return on investment. You're in and out. You have a great romp of a time and you didn't have to spend 10 hours with what, you know, as I've said, was not a great payoff to me. So then I'm glad it all kind of wrapped up because I'm like, You know what? It's fine. Two hours, great.

Yeah, I think two hours is the right length for a who-done-it. I mean, this isn't a who-done-it. It's a who's going to be Pope. Well, we want to know what you think about Conclave. Find us at Facebook.com slash PCHH. And on Letterboxed at letterboxed.com slash NPR Pop Culture. We'll have a link in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show. Andrew Laypin, Waylon Wong, Aisha Harris.

Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. And just a reminder that, Signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org slash happy hour,

or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Liz Metzker and edited by Jessica Reedy and Mike Katzif. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all tomorrow.