The Academy Award-winning movie has seen a 3,200 percent spike in streaming views as the church prepares to select a new pontiff.
The explosion of interest in the movie “Conclave” since the death of Pope Francis — streaming views on Amazon Prime spiked 3,200 percent week-over-week, according to Luminate — signals the swiveling of global attention to the ancient and secretive process of picking a pontiff.
The fates of “Conclave” and the 266th pope have been intertwined. The film was first released in October, less than three months before Francis was hospitalized with a respiratory crisis in February. While the pontiff lay abed at Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital, “Conclave” won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It was nominated for eight Oscars.
“Conclave” stars Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini, and John Lithgow, and centers on the process by which a new pope is selected. Church law ordains that the papal conclave begins between 15 and 20 days after the death of the bishop of Rome. The shape of the modern conclave — with its premium on secrecy — was set by Pope Gregory X’s papal bull Ubi periculum in 1271.
A papabile, or potential pope, will need to secure the votes of two-thirds of the 135 cardinals eligible to cast ballots. Those votes will take place at the Sistine Chapel soon after Francis’s funeral on Saturday. The electors will all be housed at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, and their work will only be completed when a plume of white smoke snakes to the sky from the Sistine Chapel. Soon after that signal a cardinal will stride to the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica and announce “Habemus Papam”: “We have a Pope.”
The movie “Conclave” begins with the moment an old pope dies, and it traces the machinations that unfold behind closed doors. Papabiles rise and fall as their factions jockey for votes and coalitions. The dean of the College of Cardinals is Thomas Lawrence (Mr. Fiennes), who denies wanting the throne. An African candidate, Joshua Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), is undone when it is disclosed that he has fathered a child with a nun.
Pope Francis at St. Peter’s Basilica, January 6, 2023. AP/Andrew Medichini, file
Another candidate is Aldo Cardinal Bellini (Mr. Tucci), a liberal in the mode of Francis who attempts to achieve his dream of renovating the Church by utilizing brass tacks. A raucous traditionalist is Goffredo Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), whose conservatism is laced with charisma. Joseph Cardinal Tremblay (Mr. Lithgow) is a consummate inside player, and Archbishop Vincent Benitez of Kabul (Carlos Diehz) is a wild card.
The movie, which cost some $20 million to make, took in more than $100 million globally. It raised the hackles of some of the faithful, though, with one critic in the Wall Street Journal likening it to “The Real Housewives of Rome” or “Survivor: Vatican City.” Others objected to — spoiler alert — the elevation of a hermaphrodite vicar of Christ. This critic likened that climax to throwing orange paint on the “Last Judgment.”
Life, though, could follow art — at least in some respects — when the princes of the church gather to elect the new pope. Eighty percent of the cardinals who will vote were appointed by Francis, suggesting that the leftward direction in which he steered the faith could endure. Broadly speaking the older generation of cardinals who came of age during the reforming age of Vatican II are seen as devoted to a more liberal approach on matters of doctrine.
Other prelates, though — Robert Cardinal Sarah chief among them — appear to be committed to a more conservative vision that aligns in America with that espoused by, say, Vice President Vance, a convert to Catholicism whose views on immigration and climate change clashed with Francis’s. The regions where the Church is gaining adherents at the fastest clip — Africa and Latin America — are conservative climes, especially on matters of sexuality.
Variety reports that “Conclave” has not been the only beneficiary of renewed interest in the ancient rites of selecting a new spiritual leader for the globe’s 1.4 billion Catholics. “The Two Popes,” a movie from 2019 about the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the rise of Francis, saw a 417 percent spike in streaming after Francis returned to “the House of the Father.”
