‘Conclave’ is an engrossing purview into the serpentine layers of intrigue and subterfuge that take place during the election of a new Pope. Though a work of fiction, there is a human interest angle in the way the Cardinals who are shut away from the world outside until the election process is complete function just as any other constituency of people would do, with muck-raking, gossip-mongering, deceit, dirty dealings and more than a few revelations which sink each of the leading candidates who outwardly profess to not wanting to be chosen, but inwardly they want nothing more.

We see the jostling and jockeying for positioning, and the way each of the leading candidates has a dirty secret which renders them ineligible for the role of chief spiritual leader of the Catholic Church, whether it is the discovery that one of them has fathered a child, or another has insufficient faith or has undertaken crooked methods to sink the chances of a rival, or where there may be gynaecological barriers to the position. This plays out as a political or conspiracy thriller in the vein of ‘All the President’s Men’, with a hunt for clues and evidence that will corroborate whether or not there has been a cover-up, and how this will play out among the community at large once the news of the appointment goes viral.

We are privy to the different factions, from traditionalists whom the liberals fear will set the Church back centuries, to those whose more progressive views on women priests or homosexuality are sufficient to scupper their chances of reaching the threshold of seventy votes needed to be sure of victory. Throughout the different rounds of voting in what is an arcane process, we see how the support of the various candidates are redistributed, and how the Cardinals are not altogether always upfront about how they plan to cast their vote, and at what cost. Ralph Fiennes is one of the Cardinals, who has eliminated himself from being elected and is presiding in the Sistine Chapel over the gathering as the Dean of the College of Cardinals.

But, to his chagrin the more he protests that he does not seek the Papacy, somehow the higher his tally of votes becomes, leading to one encounter with a fellow Cardinal with an unspecified secret who assures him of his vote no matter how dogmatically he protests that he does not want it. The revelation at the end is at first preposterous, but it fits with everything that has gone before, and what we see is a captivating, thrilling and intelligent thriller about the power games and manipulations that suggest even our spiritual leaders are not really all that different from the rest of us.