See the movie Conclave.

[Allan Black]

My wife and I just saw Conclave and enjoyed it, it is brilliant.

A Vatican cardinal seems to be the role that Ralph Fiennes was born to play. His casting is simply perfect and his performance is nothing short of brilliant. I am in awe of actors who can express such raw emotion that tears run unbidden down their cheeks. I doubt he’ll ever play another character with such conviction.

Conclave was nominated for eight 2025 Academy Awards, for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Film Editing and Best Costume Design by Lisy Christl.

But Conclave which has won various other awards and holds a near-perfect score of 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, took home just one Academy Award — Best Adapted Screenplay (Peter Straughan.) Tough year at the Oscars.

However, within 5 minutes of the start I was fascinated by the use of the colour red, it looked to me like each scene was carefully graded to subtly feature red.

Costume designer Lisy Christl says … “Red is a very important color in the Catholic Church, to begin with. Director Edward and I looked at the shade of red the church is using now and thought it wouldn’t work for the film. This was actually our starting point to say, let’s change the color. Let’s also change the fabric to a heavier, woolen fabric, in a red that embraces you. A color can create a distance and the color can draw you in. Red is the color of blood. It’s for love. It’s for fire. It is a very powerful and meaningful color.”

Make sure you see this movie in a theatre, it’ll be a shame when it appears on television.

One slight trouble I had was, apart from Fiennes and Tucci, relating the actors to their characters. At times they just appear unannounced, so here’s a primer for you to memorise for your experience. Click to enlarge. Enjoy.

[Christopher Young]

Loved it! Great story line. Good script, acting, direction and camerawork. A 5***** recommendation!

Chris Young