The Importance of Pope Francis in enjoying 2024’s Conclave movie

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The recent sad death of Pope Francis is sure to lead to many reaching for their Amazon Prime subscriptions to watch Conclave from 2024. It centers on the succession of a new Pope. The cardinal brothers are charged with electing a new Pope in the midst of the death of the previous Pontiff. I know you guessed as much but for posterity… there is the plot.

The Two Popes

This is a thrilling political journey I’ve not seen since 2019’s The Two Popes which was a bit more interesting in the sense that I was more bought in to the story, it being based on actual events that happened. Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce star as Popes Benedict and Francis.

Conclave is interesting though, too, and Pope Francis taking over from another Pope is broadly the same situation, and the politically charged process and result in Conclave is the added sauce in this melting pot of a movie. Spoiler alert — the movie ends with a hermaphrodite as the incoming Pope.

Who is in Conclave?

Ralph Fiennes plays a good cardinal who with his own doubts considers his own candidacy folly and sets about making a fair and true election conclave to find a new Pope and sidelines his own chances at the papacy. Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini complete the main cast of the movie.

Why do I care?

There’s something about the impending, historically significant, change caused by succession in The Vatican that resonates and is recorded by these current times. Despite the recent change within the Catholic Church documented by The Two Popes, you would have to go back to 1978 For another short reign like that of Pope Benedict XVI — Pope John Paul I who only had 33 days as Pope! And even earlier for the first African Pope (Pope Victor I) which occured in the year 195. What an immense change an African Pope would be now. Speaking of which, in 1927 Priest and scientist Georges Lemaître began to propose The Big Bang Theory and studied Hubble’s Law.

As for Conclave, my view is that in the end the story is cobbled together just before the final scenes of the film which are explosive. A generally fairly average movie which doesn’t deserve to be elevated, but will well and truly be so.

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