Movie Reviews

Is a Movie About Electing a Pope Allowed to Be This Entertaining?

Published

1 year ago

September 12, 2024

Is a Movie About Electing a Pope Allowed to Be This Entertaining?

Conclave combines the pulp velocity of a great airport read with the gravitas of high drama.
Photo: Focus Features/Everett Collection

Conclave begins with the image of a cardinal tensely making his way along a Roman highway late at night, his crimson biretta cap clasped tightly in his hand. It’s a stark, almost funny image, the elegant robes of this high priest trudging through a bleak, contemporary urban setting. The characters of Conclave won’t spend much time in the world at large — this is one of the few times we will see one outside in Edward Berger’s film — but the dissonance will continue to resonate. These are men carrying out what they view as an ancient function: electing a new Pope, now that the old one has died. They diligently shut out the modern world, but it’s still there, outside the windows and beyond the doors, constantly felt in everything they do.

At the center of the squall is Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to run the conclave, as cardinals from around the world gather inside the hallowed sanctuary of the Sistine Chapel to cast ballots for a new pontiff. It’s a perfect role for Fiennes, who can do both placidity and intensity — sometimes, somehow, all at once. Thomas exudes gentleness and tolerance. He’s a deeply conflicted man who admits, in an initial address to the conclave, that he values doubt and abhors certainty — and yet, as the picture proceeds, he becomes more obsessed with controlling the outcome.

Berger’s film is adapted, quite faithfully, from Robert Harris’s 2016 novel, and it combines the pulp velocity of a great airport read with the gravitas of high drama. It solemnly depicts the ornate rituals around the death of the Pope — the ribbons placed across his door and fastened with melted red wax, the seals clipped off his rings, the constant prayers and the secretive mutterings — with only a slight nod to the sheer pointlessness of it all. It means something to these men, and that’s enough. Same, too, with the lugubrious dance of the conclave itself, with its round after round of balloting and tallying and quiet reflecting.

Many film critics who participate in year-end awards voting will find themselves nodding with recognition during Conclave at how allegiances shift between ballots in response to who’s ahead, who’s likely to win, and whose support seems to be crumbling. I have no idea how accurate this is to the way cardinals actually vote, but both the book and the movie have the confident ring of truth, or at least truthiness. And it’s interesting to learn that the Very Serious Men who elect popes scheme as effectively as the New York Film Critics Circle did when it voted (well-deserving) underdog Rachel Weisz best actress in 2012 to prevent front-runners Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence from getting the prize instead; or when the warring camps of Days of Heaven and Deer Hunter supporters at the National Society of Film Critics in 1978 famously fought each other to a standstill and allowed Bertrand Blier’s Get Out Your Handkerchiefs to sneak in and win Best Picture that year.

Where was I? Oh, right, Conclave. Amid such stately ceremony, Berger finds ways to insert gradually escalating tumult and cattiness. Though he tries to be fair and balanced, Thomas is allied with Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci), a progressive candidate who wants to continue the Church’s liberalization and engagement with the world. Opposing them is Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a reactionary Italian who thinks the Church has been on the wrong track ever since it got rid of the Latin Mass in the 1960s. But there are other candidates as well — chiefly, Joseph Tremblay (John Lithgow), a supreme politician who, for all his outward soft-spoken humility, clearly has great ambitions. And then there’s Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), a charismatic cardinal from Nigeria who could become the first Black pope.

None of these people actively campaign for the papacy. Save maybe for the flamboyant Tedesco (a not very big role that Castellitto turns into a full, rollicking meal), they’re all lowered eyebrows and hushed whispers and collegial exchanges, soberly prostrating themselves before God and seeking His guidance…all the while quietly and viciously stabbing each other in the back. Such muted machinations present a wonderful showcase for these actors, as well as Isabella Rossellini, as a head nun who becomes more central to the plot, and the relatively unknown Mexican actor Carlos Diehz, as a heretofore unknown cardinal named Vincent Benitez. Secretly named the Archbishop of Kabul, Benitez shows up unannounced on the day of the conclave and sends what promised to be a predictable gathering into the first of its many entertaining tailspins.

Despite the fact that they’ve all been cocooned deep inside the Vatican, with the doors barred, the priests of Conclave are all quite aware of how everything they do will have real-world repercussions, particularly in the way the Church is perceived. That fragile isolation isn’t just a psychological element. We sense throughout that the outside world is undergoing turmoil of which these men are mostly unaware — though we suspect they soon will be, both metaphorically and physically. Berger expertly milks that anticipation, then nails several artfully heated and lively climaxes. My audience at the Telluride Film Festival began roaring with delight and surprise, and I’ve heard similar reports out of Toronto screenings as well. So, well, don’t be surprised if this sinfully entertaining movie wins a few awards.

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Movie Reviews

No More Time – Review | Pandemic Indie Thriller | Heaven of Horror

Published

11 hours ago

December 15, 2025

Press Room

No More Time – Review | Pandemic Indie Thriller | Heaven of Horror

Where is the dog?

You can call me one-track-minded or say that I focus on the wrong things, but do not include an element that I am then expected to forget. Especially if that “element” is an animal – and a dog, even.

In No More Time, we meet a couple, and it takes quite some time before we suddenly see that they have a dog with them. It appears in a scene suddenly, because their sweet little dog has a purpose: A “meet-cute” with a girl who wants to pet their dog.

After that, the dog is rarely in the movie or mentioned. Sure, we see it in the background once or twice, but when something strange (or noisy) happens, it’s never around. This completely ruins the illusion for me. Part of the brilliance of having an animal with you during an apocalyptic event is that it can help you.

And yet, in No More Time, this is never truly utilized. It feels like a strange afterthought for that one scene with the girl to work, but as a dog lover, I am now invested in the dog. Not unlike in I Am Legend or Darryl’s dog in The Walking Dead. As such, this completely ruined the overall experience for me.

If it were just me, I could (sort of) live with it. But there’s a reason why an entire website is named after people demanding to know whether the dog dies, before they’ll decide if they’ll watch a movie.

Movie Reviews

Film reviews: ‘Marty Supreme’ and ‘Is This Thing On?’

Published

23 hours ago

December 14, 2025

Press Room

‘Marty Supreme’

Directed by Josh Safdie (R)

★★★★

The Timothée Chalamet movie that’s arriving on Christmas Day is “a 150-minute-long heart attack of a film,” said Nick Schager in The Daily Beast. In “a career-best turn” that’s “a feverish go-for-broke tour de force,” Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, an aspiring table tennis champ in 1950s New York City who’s ready to lie, cheat, and steal for the chance to become the best in the world. This first film from director Josh Safdie
since 2019’s Uncut Gems turns out to be a character study that “doubles as a cracked American success story,” said David Fear in Rolling Stone. Marty is a scrawny kid with a pathetic mustache, but he’s also a fast-talking grifter with supreme self-confidence, and his game earns him a trip to London and the world championship tournament before a humbling stokes his hunger for a comeback.

Surrounding Chalamet is “a supporting cast you’d swear was assembled via Mad Libs,” because it features Fran Drescher, Penn Jillette, Tyler the Creator, Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, and—as a faded movie star Marty sweet-talks into an affair—Gwyneth Paltrow, “reminding you how good she was before Goop became her full-time gig.” To me, it’s the story beneath the story that makes Safdie’s “nerve-jangling, utterly exhilarating” movie one of the best of the year, said Alissa Wilkinson in The New York Times. “It’s about a Jewish kid who knows just what kind of antisemitism and finely stratified racial dynamics he’s up against in postwar America, and who is using every means at his disposal to smack back.”

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‘Is This Thing On?’

Directed by Bradley Cooper (R)

★★★

“There are far worse things that a gifted filmmaker could offer an audience these days than a feel-good divorce comedy,” said Owen Gleiberman in Variety. But it’s still slightly disappointing that screen star Bradley Cooper has followed up A Star Is Born and Maestro with this minor work, due Dec. 19, about a father of two who starts doing stand-up in New York City to cope with the likely end of his marriage. With Will Arnett and Laura Dern as its co-stars, Is This Thing On? is “an observant, bittersweet, and highly watchable movie,” but it’s also so eager to hide the agonies of divorce that it “can feel like it’s cutting corners.”

The 124-minute film “doesn’t really get going until hour two,” said Ryan Lattanzio in IndieWire. Until then, it’s “lethargic and listless,” slowed by long takes “that drag on and on.” Fortunately, Arnett and Dern have real chemistry that kicks in when Dern’s Tess accidentally catches Arnett’s Alex performing his bit about their sidelined marriage and sees him with new eyes. Good as Arnett is, “it’s Dern who’s the revelation as a woman who truly doesn’t know what she wants and is figuring it out in real time,” said Alison Willmore in NYMag.com. Cooper, playing a reprobate friend of Alex’s, gives himself the script’s biggest laughs. More importantly, he proves again to be a director with “a real flair for domestic drama.”

Movie Reviews

Not Without Hope movie review (2025) | Roger Ebert

Published

1 day ago

December 14, 2025

Press Room

Not Without Hope movie review (2025) | Roger Ebert

Joe Carnahan was a sagacious choice to co-write and direct the engrossing and visceral survival thriller “Not Without Hope,” given Carnahan’s track record of delivering gripping and gritty actioners, including early, stylish crime thrillers such as “Narc” (2002) and “Smokin’ Aces” (2006), and the absolutely badass and bonkers Liam Neeson v Giant Wolves epic “The Grey” (2011).

Based on the non-fiction book of the same name, “Not Without Hope” plunges us into the stormy waters of the Gulf of Mexico for the majority of the film, and delivers a breathtaking and harrowing dramatic re-creation of the 2009 accident that left four friends, including two NFL players, clinging to their single-engine boat and fighting for their lives. The survival-at-sea story here is a familiar one, told in films such as “White Squall,” “The Perfect Storm,” and “Adrift,” and the screenplay by Carnahan and E. Nicholas Mariani leans into well-worn tropes and, at times, features cliché-ridden dialogue. Still, this is a well-paced and powerful work, thanks to the strong performances by the ensemble cast, some well-placed moments of character introspection, and the documentary-style, water-level camerawork by Juanmi Azpiroz.

Zachary Levi (the TV series “Chuck,” the “Shazam!” movies) is best known for comedy and light action roles. Still, he delivers solid, straightforward, and effective dramatic work as Nick Schuyler, a personal trainer who helps his friends Marquis Cooper (Quentin Plair) and Corey Smith (Terrence Terrell), two journeyman NFL players, get ready for another season. When their pal Will Bleakley (Marshall Cook) shows up at a barbecue and announces he has just been laid off from his financial firm, he’s invited to join the trio the next morning on a day-trip fishing trip from Clearwater, FL., into the Gulf of Mexico. (The casting is a bit curious, as the four lead actors are 10-20 years older than the ages of the real-life individuals they’re playing — but all four are in great shape, and we believe them as big, strong, physically and emotionally tough guys.)

We can see the longtime bond between these four in the early going, though we don’t learn much about their respective stories before the fishing trip. Kudos Carnahan and the studio for delivering a film that earns its R rating, primarily for language and intense action; the main characters are jocks and former jocks, and they speak with the casual, profanity-laced banter favored by many an athlete. (Will, describing the sandwiches he’s made for the group: “I got 20 f*cking PB&Js, and 20 f*cking turkey and cheese.”) There’s no sugarcoating the way these guys talk—and the horrors they wind up facing on the seas.

The boat is about 70 miles off the coast of Clearwater when the anchor gets stuck, and the plan to thrust the boat forward to dislodge it backfires, resulting in the vessel capsizing and the men being thrown overboard. Making matters worse, their cell phones were all sealed away in a plastic bag in the cabin, and a ferocious storm was approaching. With title cards ticking off the timeline (“13 Hours Lost at Sea,” “20 Hours Lost at Sea,” “42 Hours Lost at Sea”), we toggle back and forth between the men frantically trying to turn over the boat, keep warm, signal faraway ships, battling hunger and thirst, and the dramas unfolding on land. Floriana Lima as Nick’s fiancée, Paula, and Jessica Blackmore as Coop’s wife, Rebekah, do fine work in the obligatory Wait-by-the-Phone roles.

It’s terrific to see JoBeth Williams still lighting up the screen some 40 years after her “Big Chill” and “Poltergeist” days, delivering powerful work as Nick’s mother, Marcia, who refuses to believe her son is gone even as the odds of survival dwindle with each passing hour. Josh Duhamel also excels in the role of the real-life Captain Timothy Close, who oversaw the rescue efforts from U.S. Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg. At one point, Close delivers a bone-chilling monologue about what happens when hypothermia sets in—“hallucinations, dementia, rage…eventually, it breaks your mind in half”—a point driven home when we see what’s happening to those men at sea. It’s savage and brutal, and heartbreaking.

Given this was such a highly publicized story that took place a decade and a half ago, it’s no spoiler to sadly note there was only one survivor of the accident, with the other three men lost to the sea. Each death is treated with unblinking honesty and with dignity, as when the natural sounds fade at one point, and we hear just the mournful score. With Malta standing in for the Gulf of Mexico and the actors giving everything they have while spending most of the movie in the water and soaked to the bone, “Not Without Hope” is a respectful and impactful dramatic interpretation that feels true to the real-life events.