Best of 2024, #10: Conclave

This is one of those movies where nominating it for Best Picture does it no favors. It’s a fun little twisty election drama, based on an airport paperback bestseller. It’s well worth watching, but ultimately there’s not much to it. It’s not meaty enough for a Picture nomination. Ralph Fiennes is more overdue for an Oscar than any other actor, but I think it would be a shame if he won for this. It would clearly just be a career-recognition win, because he doesn’t get enough to do here. He definitely should have won Supporting last year for The Menu instead, but he wasn’t even nominated.

Straying From the Party Line: The Twist Has to Affect the Hero

This movie has a doozy of a twist at the very end, but our hero’s internal journey (admitting to himself that he wants to be pope and then accepting that he shouldn’t be) has already concluded, and the news he finds out at the end is shocking but not life-changing. If it surprised us that he was willing to hide this revelation, that would be one thing, but it entirely fits with his behavior before that. It’s not reversible behavior. So the twist felt more like an extra punchline than a climax.