Conclave: A Captivating Exploration of Power, Faith, and Intrigue in the Vatican

And that made me mad. You don't like that? That make that was awful. This is a conclave, Aldo. It's not a war. It is a war. And you have to commit to a side. Hi, welcome to the Real Generation Gap. I'm Rudy Ruiz. I'm Fred Satili. And today we're going to be talking about the 2024 film Conclave. Conclave was directed by Edward Berger, starring Ralph Fiennes or Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow. And it follows Cardinal Lawrence, played by Fiennes, who is set up to lead the election of the new pope after their pope had just passed away suddenly. And we've got to deal with some conspiracy issues and some, you know, some rivalry, some not good stuff going on. And this was your pick. I got to say for me, just to start off, I suppose. I remember seeing the trailer for this maybe a month or two ago, and I'm not really drawn to anything. Pope church intrigue type movies. So I was immediately like, all right, there's one I'm not going to see. But then you picked it. I was dreading it. Sorry. Sorry. Oh, man. OK, my bad. I guess I got to go watch this movie. My friend ended up joining me because he wanted to see it. And, you know, I go in with an open mind. And I got to say, though, this movie really turned me around. And it was amazing. The ride from from start where I'm like, all right, let's see what's going to happen, where are we going? And it was a slow start, wasn't it? Yeah, a very slow start. Yeah. But it got me. I really pulled me in. I thought it was really compelling. I didn't quite know where it was, where it was going to go. You know, as he's uncovering these mysteries of, you know, these other people, you know, trying to get votes to be the pope, some of them doing things they shouldn't be doing in order to, you know, get elected. I thought all of that was very interesting. And yeah, I mean, what made you want to pick this one? Because we were almost going to do an entirely different movie. And then you chose this one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, one thing it was recommended by one friend and then another friend told me under no circumstances go to this. Right. So when somebody tells me don't do something, well, that's the next thing I'm going to do. Right. So I said, oh, you don't want me to do it. He's a very devoted Catholic. And he said, oh, this is blasphemy. Don't go to this. And I thought, wow, for that kind of reaction. Yeah. And and I a lot of times I review things just so I know what I'm talking about. I don't want to just accept somebody's opinion. I have to make my own. So it's like, well, I guess I better see this. And then I had another friend who said, you really need to see this. So that's what I reckon. I say, you know what, Rudy, let's let's watch Conclave. And you're like, well, if we have to, you know, and something like that. And I appreciated your acquiescence, you know, how, you know, but because I could see where you wouldn't want to. But it was a slow starter. But as you as you said, it picked up really gradually. It didn't even pick up quickly. It wasn't like there was a punch. And now you're oh, my God, it was intrigue. Lots and lots of intrigue. This could have been this story could have been like a political story, like in a completely different setting. Right. This could have been done like in the Pentagon or anywhere, you know. And one of the things that made this great was the personalities of the characters. You think of a cardinal is a very advanced priest. Yeah. Right. And you think, well, by that time, they must be all the same. But just like the Supreme Court in the United States, where it's four to five, four to five, how can four of them be wrong? Right. Now here they're going to pick a pope. You would think it would be pretty clear to everybody who the who the best man for the job would be. And they didn't even get the best man, did they? We'll save that. But it was fantastic to see the really militant pope and the really left leaning pope. And then out of nowhere, the very godly pope, you know, and then the worldly pope. It was it was really interesting. All the different personalities and how their votes were affected. And, you know, some of these cardinals had contempt for each other. Oh, look at them. It's like, wait a minute, this guy's a brother cardinal. I mean, usually when you see a sports team, the guys don't trash the other players, right? You're like, oh, we would have won if we had a better shortstop. But that guy, you know, yeah, you don't see that. But with this, you really did. Yeah, I'm glad you bring that up. That dynamic was very interesting. And to your point, yeah, you wouldn't expect that. It's and they're supposed to be, like you said, advanced priests. They all are for the same cause, should believe in the same things. But it's amazing how different they all were. And the fact that there's some degree of corruption in there. I mean, like bribery and trying to trying to, you know, I need to be the pope. And the fact that they have to do whatever they got to do to make sure that I think Eddie Emmy was the the man from Africa that was in the lead. Yes. And they're like, it can't be him. It can't be him because of his views on, you know, homosexuals. I think it was and like it just can't be him. It can't be Tedesco. The dude from Italy, the militant. Yeah, because he was very traditional. He wanted he wanted a return of the Roman Empire. Yeah, he was that heavy. Yeah. And I mean, I love those conversations. And, you know, Bellini, who was Stanley Tucci's character, who's very reluctant, but Cardinal Lawrence, Ralph Fiennes and the rest of their I guess their particular pocket of people are really pushing for him because he's more progressive and he doesn't want it. And they like the fact that he doesn't want it. It's like the fact that you. Right. Don't like you're not like hungry to be this leader. It's why probably you should be the one. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I thought that was all that was interesting. I like one thing that really stood out to me was the it seems like there was a little bit of an emphasis on technology. Right. Where I'm going with that is I guess I had to read about this conclave. So I didn't know anything about this, but it's very, very secret. This obviously doesn't happen very often. Yeah, there's sequester. And then, yeah, they're in like complete lockdown. Like the shutters come down. They're not leaving the place. In this movie, that aspect of it almost makes it feel like a period piece, like there's times where it's like this can be take because it's so traditional. This could be taking place whenever. But then you get these little reminders. Like there's one point where Tedesco is hitting a vape pen. You know, there's another part when all the Cardinals are. And there's a guy that the Cardinals on his iPhone. Yeah. You know, there's a moment where they're walking outside and they're those guards at the door in that old school regalia. The Swiss guard. OK, yeah, that's what it's called. The guards of the Vatican, the police, the Vatican or the Swiss guard. And you talk about a traditional. Yeah, I mean, they make the beef eaters in London. Yeah. Look like regular guys. Yeah. And then and then mere minutes later, they get in the police escort. And you're reminded, oh, yeah, there's motorcycles and great machine guns. Yeah. There's a part where he talks to John Lithgow and they make it a point where he's pressing. I think it was the coffee machine as they're talking and it just looks loud machine. So I thought that was really interesting to tie that in, because there's points where I almost forgot, like, wait, when is this set? And it's like, oh, OK, it's supposed to be right. This is how we're in time. And even, you know, the way they treat the the women, I guess, not that they're necessarily mistreated, but the fact that in this world they are subservient, you know, they just they make the food. They be quiet. Well, it's speak or anything, you know, it's their it's their place. It's not that they're women. It's not that they're women and men. It's that this is a religion. This has got nothing to do with social politics, supposedly. Right. This is a religion. And they in this movie, the religious aspect is the last thing on the list. And I'll tell you the big telling factor. Did you see a crucifix in this movie that you can recall? I don't think so. Maybe you saw that you saw the paintings on the ceiling. Right. So you're in the Vatican for heaven's sakes. Yeah. But do you remember any of these other than at the end of a prayer? One guy said, you know, this I say in the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior or whatever. But there was no Jesus in this movie. These are Christians. Christ is the big guy. Right. And that was left out of this movie. And none of these guys were motivated by that. Not not even the Afghanistan guy. Now, he was a very moral human being. Yeah. But at no point did they read from the Bible and say, this is what we do. This is how we do it. This is why. The fact that the religion of Christianity and the practice or whatever of Catholicism wasn't really a part of this. It was a very, very political movie. That's why I said they could have done this in the Pentagon. Right. It wasn't there was nobody saying, well, I'll pray on this. You know, I expected from the previews, you know, I expected a lot of Gregorian chants and a lot of people who didn't speak. And these guys, one thing I did like that I did think was kind of authentic ish was they did have a really lot of Latin. Yeah. And I like Latin because one of the problems we have in society is the interpretation of words. What does that mean to you? You want to be safe? What does safe mean? You know, to what degree or whatever? But in Latin, there's like one definition, like whatever that word is. It doesn't get interpreted. And that's why it's a really good language. That's why it's used in law. So the fact that they use a lot of Latin, I really liked. And these priests who are like the Hispanic priests, they spoke Spanish. Yeah. You know, and everybody and everybody was kind of comfortable with it because the Romance languages are pretty similar. Italian and Latin and everything. A lot. And Spanish. So that was interesting. But the fact that Jesus wasn't even involved in this thing was to me was really wrong and really blasphemous. I've asked this question about other movies. The Hunger Games is one of them. Who was this made for? Who was supposed to see this? Why did they do this? A producer got money together. A director read the script and said, oh, yeah, these actors who did this. Some of them were well cast. You know, Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci were they were well cast. Lithgow, on the other hand, John Lithgow is an incredible actor with an incredible career. He's got a huge I mean, his live performances. I saw him one night reciting poetry without reading. He's on a stage for a long time reciting poem after poem. Very impressive. But but he's like John Wayne. When you see a John Wayne movie, it's John Wayne. You see, you know, it's virtually impossible. Like like Schwarzenegger or Stallone. It's impossible to not see. Well, that's Sylvester Stallone. You know, this is his new show, right? And it's that way with Lithgow. There's a comedy aspect to him. I mean, he's played movies where he was the villain. Yeah. But even then it was like anger. That's what exactly what I was thinking of. But what a fantastic. He was such an evil son of a bitch in that movie. But there was still a comedic edge to his evil. Yeah. And and so even this was serious as a heart attack. Yeah. But somehow it's kind of like John Cleese. You know, it's always a little bit funny. So I thought he was miscast. Like I could have been completely immersed in the movie because these other people I didn't and I didn't even realize that Isabella Rossellini was was the nun who spoke up and spoke out. And she she did the thing that I want everybody in life to do. Like she knew the truth. And it's like, look, we're silent. We don't see we don't hear we're here in service. But God gave us eyes if we saw this. And I'm telling you right now, this guy, you know. Yeah. And then she was unimpeachable. Like when she did that, the priest went like, we're not arguing with that. You you're a traitor, right? Traitor. Yeah. Right. Judas Traitor. Yeah. You knew what that meant. You need subtitles. And then everybody was like, oh, man. And he was like, but, but, but, but, but I can explain. And they were like, yeah, I did like him in the role. I he felt very real to me, just his reaction to everything. And anytime he has a conversation with Cardinal Lawrence, because he gets confronted a couple of times about, hey, you were here. You're the last person to see. Right. Word on the street is he was telling you to resign. And he's always so good at just being the. No, that's not how it went. Like we talk, but it was this and kind of trying to lie. And then once they they confront him with the truth and hey, we have receipts. We got papers. And and yeah, that point when everyone's looking at him and the first time he got confronted the pope the day before he died, he wanted you to resign. He's like, I'm hurt that you would say something like that. It was like it wasn't that it was bad acting. It was intentionally bad acting. Yeah. You know what I mean? It was like this guy's this guy's a, you know, he's playing it. Yeah. Yeah. It's and he did get confronted a lot of times. He had a tough time. I did almost feel, though, because I think to his credit, John Lithgow, the actor, he almost makes me feel for him at times because there's points where it's like he's being a dick about this, you know, but there's there's just moments where he's like when he's sitting there at the end and they do the final vote, he's so depressed and down and out. And it's like, oh, man. And even his glasses were a little broken. Yeah. Yeah. After that, I like those details that they were still just scratched up and all that. And yeah, his glasses. Well, we didn't tell the we didn't tell the audience why that was the case. Yeah. And and I guess because of I guess I'll say it at a certain point, it's a really serious movie that they're trying to elect a new pope. All these cardinals are are vying for, you know, their favorite guy or themselves. And at one point, there's a huge blast and a big part of the wall is blown away and a window is blown out because outside a car bomb goes off. Now, how they got a car bomb in the Vatican, I don't know, but they did. And it blew a big hole in the building in the cardinals where they all had minor injury scrapes and cuts and stuff and everything. But the thing when I saw that, I said, didn't we just see this in the Joker like three weeks ago when the courthouse exploded? You know, and it's just like, is this going to be a thing now? Like it gets real serious and there's a terrorist attack, you know? And the cool thing about the terrorist attack was that in other major cities at that moment, they mentioned Munich and I can't remember another one. But there were also like car bombs. So they were there were people around the world that were somehow trying to influence this. But that was a moment of excitement and tension in the movie that brought it to a whole nother dimension. You know, we're under attack here. Yeah, I came out of nowhere. I was not expecting that. When they announced later in the story that it was a car bomb, I thought it was a rocket because it came from above. Yeah, right. Yeah, it was way up high. The part of the roof. It wasn't like from underneath where I would be like if this corner got blown up. Yeah, you wouldn't expect a car bomb. Yeah. You know, so I figured somebody launch a mortar in there or something because the Vatican is small. You know, it's it's easily to reach by any kind of weapons. So, you know, of course, it's got a huge wall around it because, you know, walls don't work. Yeah, but it's got a gigantic one all around the whole thing. That was an interesting moment. Everybody was a little bit now. It changed the whole dynamic of what was going on. It's like, all right, we we got to get serious here. Yeah. You know, yeah, I got a little more real after that. And so Stanley Tucci, he didn't want to be the pope. He said, I didn't want to be. And to me, that's always a tactic like the guy who does that wants to be. Yeah. And they said that they said, you're the most qualified because you're not you're not an egotist. Now, Tedesco, he was the uber Italian. He wanted the return of the Roman Empire. And he said, these Muslims are in our country and they're killing us. We have to stop them and wipe them out and kill them and banish them from our land. And, you know, he wanted a holy war. And so that was a that was an interesting character. And I thought his points were well able to be understood like that we are having a problem with that. You know, Islam is a problem all throughout the world that they create problems everywhere they go. And so he was had a very militant approach to that, whereas other cardinals, they were more accepting. And when Tedesco made his big speech, his final push like, who is with me? Well, that's when a very unique cardinal appeared. And he was a guy who the pope had made him a cardinal and sent him to Kabul, Afghanistan, undercover. And he said, you have to try to be the missionary there. And this is a very dangerous thing. And the interesting part of that cardinal was that he was a Mexican. So he spoke Spanish and he was very clearly Mexican. It was a well cast part. Yeah. He when Tedesco said, we need war, we need war. This guy said, what do you know about war? He goes, have you seen a hundred dead bodies as it lined up on a sidewalk as a result of some kind of attack? He goes, is that your religion? Is that your God talking? You think that God wants that murder on that kind of scale? And now all of a sudden it was everybody was like, wow. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like, well, thank God that religion finally came into it. He was the one religious guy. Yeah. And and he said, well, yeah, we don't want that. We don't want that. That was a moment that for me felt very so. I'll be honest, I don't really follow the politics that's going on, but we just had elections and there's, you know, people have their thoughts, whatever. I'm just trying to get by over here. But that felt in that moment, like all this voting stuff was interesting in that moment when they're having that talk in there, that scene, which I love that is right after the bombing. So they got all they're all cut up. They have all the dirt on you just experienced an attack. Yeah. And it just all was it fun? Yeah. I just think that was funny. Very dark. And there's just like one top light above all of them, this little pocket of light. And they're in this dark abyss. I just love that that cinematography. But everything he said right there was, I think, really resonant with the with the time. And I love that. I wish I remembered, you know, the speech he gave. But it essentially ends with it's not the, you know, it's not about the tradition or the past. Like the church is what we do next. And that made me mad, you know, like that. That that was awful. See that to me, that was like contrived crap for woke people now. OK, because the church is 100 percent about the past and 100 percent about tradition. Jesus was 2000 years ago. We're not blowing that off. This is Christianity. Don't tell me all the past. No, we're not talking about. But all we're talking about is the past. It's the Bible, right? There is no new stuff. Right. You're supposed to have faith in something that happened thousands of years ago, then punctuated with Jesus. You know, the Old Testament as compared to the New Testament. So the fact that he was saying the church isn't about the past, it's about the future. Yeah. No, no. And and and God and religion are infinite. There is no future or past for them. They want you to have a certain moral code that's universal and timeless. You're not supposed to change it, you know. So that made me really angry. That was like, oh, this is a Hollywood production. This is what they promote. And I get it. I get it. Yeah. Yeah. Here we go. Here we go. You know, and then but they gave us the twist of the century, didn't they? Yeah, I guess for me in that moment, because I'm and I'm not I was raised Catholic, I'm not very religious, though, I don't want. So I guess my and I'm probably not articulating this well, but my interpretation of that was quite different. I'm seeing it through like a very different lens. As you you know, what I'm having, what I'm having. Yeah. Oh, no, I can't even explain it. I just I just like the way that speech played out. Oh, it was well, well written, dramatic and well acted. Yeah. All the acting and production, everything in this was great. Oh, yeah. You know, and I still even after that, because there's, you know, these talks where it gets to a point where Bellini, Stanley, Stanley Tucci. Right. He's not going to make it. But him and other people. Yeah, he loses Pennsylvania and Georgia. But he and other people, including Benitez, was his name, the the Mexican cardinal that was right in Afghanistan and all that are voting for Lawrence, who also says he doesn't want it. But he was very clear about, hey, I was trying to get out of this before the pope died. And so we didn't even look like our last conversation wasn't on good terms. Had I had a couple more months, I'd have been out of here. So so he's someone who legit, it seems like doesn't want it. Maybe till we get to that final kind of act where. All right. Well, it probably has to be me, Lawrence. It can't be these other guys. So when they did that final vote, I was still thinking it was going to be him, even though we just came off of that speech from Benitez, which makes, I guess, you know, obvious that it's going to be him. I was still a little bit surprised. And very much surprised by the revelation that they find out after. Yeah, it turns out that he was born with both parts and they they. He was a hermaphrodite. Yeah. Yeah. They find that that's part of why it was a secret. The pope knew that as well, even paid for him to go to a clinic to get a hysterectomy, and he decided not to because he made it this far. Right. So this is how God made me. I'm going to keep moving. And plus, it didn't affect his ministry. Yeah. You know, the fact that he was a little bit gender undetermined. Right. It was he was still doing his job in a very effective and wonderful way in the most dangerous environment possible. Yeah, I did. I did not see that that coming at all. I did not know it was going that way. And then he made the second speech when he got together with the cardinal and the cardinal confronted him privately and said, look, I understand that you went to Switzerland for a hysterectomy operation. And he said, yes, but I decided not to have it. I wanted to remain the way God had made me. Who am I to change his handiwork or whatever? I am what I am. I'm born this way. I'm and I'm going to do my best. And he said, I will be happy to resign from the post. And then Hollywood entered the picture and the cardinal said, no, accept it. He said he said in the modern changing world or something, you may be the best person for this. And I didn't like that either. But that was that was the movie. I didn't get to write the movie. And this was the movie, right? Yeah. I don't remember how that conversation played out. I don't remember it going quite like that. But I watch it again. Remember, he was sitting and he said, I've been waiting for you. Ralphine came and said, can I talk to you privately? And he said, I've been waiting for you. And he stood up and he said, look, I understand you went for this ovary operation. And he said, yes, that's true. I have ovaries. Yeah. He said, I have female reproductive organs. And he said, well, like sort of I won't tell anybody if you don't. Yeah, the movie ended very hard then. Yeah. You know, it was like, well, you're you accept the ordination. You will be ordained pope. You know, then of course, that's a weird secret to keep. Now, I don't know if you know this, but in history, there were two women popes. And these are women that pulled off faking it. You know, yeah, they were the big Mike of their era. And one of them even had a baby during a parade in France. And I should have done a little research on this and told everybody, you know, the name of the city or whatever. But this city in France has like a big shrine there where the pope had the baby. It was such a scandal that they had women popes that the Vatican created a chair that was kind of like a toilet seat with a hole in the middle. And when somebody before they were ordained, the cardinal was sitting, another one would reach up under the chair and feel around to make sure that you had, you know, the equipment that you needed to be the pope. Really? Yeah. And the Vatican still has this chair. They don't use it now. Yeah. But they they even still as a historic probably is probably made out of solid gold or something. You know, the Catholics, you know. And another interesting thing, a couple of years ago, I read a book about all the sequence of popes. These popes in the 15, 16 hundreds, they had a life expectancy of two to three years. It wasn't like, well, the 1800s, you had this guy, the 1700s. No, they were changing them, you know, three times every 10 years. They would kill them. They'd poison them or some kind of problem, you know, whatever it was. It was a real battle. It was a very powerful position, obviously. You're a world leader. And there was competition and there was jealousy and avarice and all that kind of good stuff that a Christian should have. And they, you know, these guys didn't last long. Their adversaries would get rid of them. So this is why you see like even even this pope, he wanted to name Innocenti, Pope Innocent, like the 11th or the 12th. I don't know how many. But that's why they have, you know, 10 Pope Johns and 10 Pope Pauls and everything, because they only had so many names. And these guys are being replaced at a frightening rate. It was a it was a very incredible honor and everything and achievement to be the pope, but it was also almost a death sentence for centuries. Every power structure is an oligarchy. There are people that support you through your advance. So that person, man or woman, they had to have the support of people and the support of the next. You know what I mean? The next level and the next level and take out their adversaries and outdo the competition. It's kind of a terrible thing, isn't it? You know, it'd be better if we could actually see the finger of God. This guy, you know, would be a little bit better. I think this movie, it trashed religion or the other side of that coin is it totally exposed the church and how the church is not really a religious institution, you know? And it's going to be hard. This movie is going to be hard for a lot of people. But I don't know that a lot of people are going to look at it. It didn't have any sex appeal. So it didn't have like it's not an action movie or, you know, it wasn't supposed to be fun. And religion is a topic that's not popular right now. I don't know what's going to happen. We'll see. It'd be interesting to see the the traction on it. I mean, yeah, I've got nothing more to add. Sound design, I'll say that I love the sound design as well. The music was excellent. Yeah, I usually comment on it. Yeah. And the music was great because it was freaky. Yeah. It wasn't the Gregorian chant. It was Twilight Zone. Yeah. The strings. Right. Yeah. A lot of low. Yeah. Almost got a horror movie ish. Right. Which churches are gothic places. I mean, they're creepy. I mean, it's you know, there's a lot of death and sorrow and people holding the animals, you know, it's kind of satanic that way. And I don't know, kind of kind of creepy. But I'm glad I went. Mm hmm. I don't recommend it. Are we going to are we going to go to the rating? Yeah. Yeah. Let's go for it. Because of my gigantically mixed feelings about this movie, I'm going to give it a five. OK. And it's it's how I don't feel it's a must see. I feel it's an interesting see. Mm hmm. What do you think? Yeah. Funny enough, I'm actually going to give it a six. A lot of a lot of sixes. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I went in just I'm not into these types of movies, but the story became more and more compelling as it went on. And I really wanted to find out, like, all right, who's who's going to get it? Where is this going? What's going to? You know, they really pull the rug out from under me in the end there with that that final reveal. And yeah, as far as you know, you ask the question, who is this for? I wouldn't know either. I mean, I guess there's a lot of people that are specifically into religious type movies. I know that it wasn't made for me. That's for sure. I wouldn't have seen it if it weren't for this show, but it worked out. I still enjoyed the story. You know, it's a well-written story. Take away some of those other other elements and everything, but the story itself and the characters, I enjoyed all that. So I'll give it a six. I'll throw it in the middle there. Fair enough. Yeah. I guess we should say amen. Well, thanks again for watching The Real Generation Gap. We appreciate your attention. I'm Fred Satili. I'm Rudy Ruiz. And the thing that I don't want you to do is I don't want you to smash that like button because it's on your computer. Why would you smash something? Don't you hate it when they say that? Smash that like button. Just gently press the like button. We'll appreciate that. Don't do any damage to your equipment and we'll see you next time.