Why ‘Conclave’ captivating audiences as season’s indie hit

Secrecy and gossip. Intrigue and politicking. Unexpected twists and startling revelations.

It’s all perhaps the stuff of the recent U.S. elections — but also the plot machinery of the blockbuster mystery thriller film “Conclave.”

Topping $76 million in ticket sales worldwide before transitioning to streaming services, secular reviews are exuberant and Academy Award buzz abounds.

Why is the movie so popular — even if not with some Catholics?

“I think that the appeal comes from a desire to get an inside look into a process that is alien to a lot of people, particularly to secular people,” said Michael Coy, media production manager and host of the Catholic Film Club podcast at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan. “The pope is still a world figure — even if Catholicism is not as central a part in people’s lives as it used to be.”

Jesuit Father Jake Martin, a clinical assistant professor of film, TV and media studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, suggests the acclaim is owing to the film’s craft.

“I think first and foremost, it’s a really well-made film, and it’s good storytelling — it tells its story very well, just from a technical point of view,” he said. “That’s a difficult thing to do.”

“As a film scholar, I’m not taking it as necessarily a reflection of the actual Church, but as someone who’s aware of how stories need to be told, and what needs to be done in order to keep momentum and pacing and stuff like that going,” he added.

Released Oct. 25 in U.S. theaters, the film’s cast includes Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini and Stanley Tucci. It is now streaming on Peacock.

Sister Hosea Rupprecht, a Daughter of St. Paul and associate director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies in Los Angeles, agreed in her otherwise critical online review that, “from a strictly filmmaking standpoint, (“Conclave”) excels with compelling storytelling and flawed but relatable characters.”

OSV News’ media reviewer John Mulderig warned that audiences will “want to approach this earnest, visually engaging but manipulative — and sometimes sensationalist — production with caution. The ideological smoke it sends up remains persistently gray.”

The film’s advertising slogan promises, “What happens behind these walls will change everything.” Spoiler ahead — the new pope turns out to be a man who also has some female reproductive organs. Meaning that by the end of the film, the Catholic Church has just — albeit somewhat accidentally, since the secret is known only by a trio of characters — elected a pope who may describe himself as intersex.

In this way, the plot toys with the question of whether a man with female attributes could be elected pope.

The answer is clearly “no” in the case of an intersex person who is biologically female with some male attributes — and those who knowingly ordained an intersex woman would incur some serious penalties. 

At the conclusion of the film, whether or not that will happen remains an open question.

Father Martin said “Conclave” does not “demonize the Church,” and “actually at times paints it in a very positive light.”

Coy said the film attempts to wrestle with “a hot-button issue, and it asks a hot-button question, which is: Could an intersex person be the pope?”

Still, for all the reactions — annoyed, praising or sometimes both — of critics, commentators and audiences, there’s one thing to remember.

“At the end of the day,” said Father Martin, “it is a work of fiction.”