Oscar 2025 Contenders: Conclave: Be Careful What You Pray For

I didn’t catch this one during its initial run, but I have to agree with everyone who saw it before me, that it was an unexpected thriller. The story hangs in the balance between the need to elect a new pope and the well established trope that anyone who strives for the position, very much like candidates for the United States Presidency, is probably the last person whom we should trust with the job. I also appreciated that while on the surface all of the church officials expressed a desire to live up to the high moral standards and attitude of service that they found in the Jesus depicted in the gospels, all of them hid varying levels of ambition, self-importance and self-doubt. They weren’t wrestling with the “forces of evil,” as much as wrestling with themselves and needing to find a solution to their divided beliefs on how the Church should run going forward, so that they could present a united front to a similarly divided outside world that seemed to be falling apart all around them. And none of them, including the now-departed pope, was beyond exposing the indiscretions of the other side if they felt like their side might be losing. How do you maintain traditions that have been evolving for over two-thousand years, keeping both the traditionalists and reformers satisfied without going too far or diminishing due to irrelevance in this fast moving age? I love that Cardinal Lawrences’ prayer (Ralph Fiennes) is that we never succumb to the sin of Certainty, such that it would eliminate our need for Faith. We’re all like the turtles, wanting to explore beyond the limitations of the pond that we are supposed to live in, often to our own peril and misfortune.

All of the actors were stellar, the photography and cinematography were amazing. I didn’t have this film picked for best picture, but I would have been satisfied if it had been selected. This was the last of the new Best Picture nominated films that I was going to watch for the Oscar movie marathon. The next two were films that I had seen during their first runs and the marathon was going to end with a session watching all of the nominated short films (live action and animated). 👍👍👍👍 Five down, three to go!

[Movie viewed on 2025-02-27 at Suncoast Cinemark with Deb].