Best Actor 2024: Ralph Fiennes in Conclave

Ralph Fiennes received his third Oscar nomination for portraying Cardinal Thomas Lawrence in Conclave. 

Conclave follows the titular event as Catholic cardinals must decide on a new Pope, naturally complications ensue.

The great actor Ralph Fiennes finally receives Oscar recognition again, after a nearly 30 year drought, despite delivering several great performances between his last nomination to now, with I’ll note that his miss for the Grand Budapest Hotel being particularly unpleasant given he was more deserving than 4 of the nominees there and in a top five contender…but I digress. The stars finally aligned again for Fiennes within the intense drama side of his oeuvre, though personally I won’t hesitate to note my preference when he gets to be more playful. Regardless Fiennes’s talent is obvious and such talent is called upon for this film in a very specific targeted performance in playing Cardinal Lawrence, the Dean of Cardinals tasked with making sure everything runs smoothly to the election of a new Pope after the death of the much beloved former Pope. What Fiennes brings more than anything here is his considerable gravitas as a performer, which is very much required to attempt to sell this Papal thriller within the film’s overarching largely very serious approach. Fiennes being the great actor he is, certainly is game to offer his dramatic ability here to bring as much reality and severity as he can to the film. Even the way he walks and maneuvers through a scene Fiennes very much steps with purpose and has that emphasis on the considerations of it all seems to be actively weighing on him at all times. Fiennes’s brow is burdened with the thoughts of what his duty is and grants us immediately that sense of a man who is filled with doubts about his faith and about himself. 

Fiennes being the consummate professional as a performer does seek to really make anything he can in the part to add a little more while very much servicing the story. Take even the very judicious albeit simple moment of taking his time with his reading glasses where Fiennes very much adds just a believability within the whole act of ceremony, that adds in the time he takes in these moments that adds the reality of someone needed to do something minor everytime in order to proceed. But further is the exposition upon exposition that Fiennes either needs to hear or deliver, such as when it comes to going from one moment to the next of setting up the titular conclave, hearing when he gets every little tidbit of potential complication as the conclave is about to begin. Fiennes has a great ability in his delivery to often underplay the gravitas, because he has such innate gravitas it comes out more naturalistic despite being often fairly overt lines. Fiennes will emphasize at times but more often benefits from his own grand presence because he can create the levels of that weight so effortlessly. Fiennes brings the right quality in the early scenes of the film as the not quite neutral head of the Conclave, however a man who will attempt to proceed with what he sees as a degree of impartiality. Something we see in his interactions with the key players vying for the papacy which includes the liberal favorite Aldo (Stanley Tucci), the African conservative Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), the overt Italian conservative Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), the moderate Tremblay (John Lithgow) and the obviously going to be important if you’ve seen the Best Man surprise Cardinal late entry dark horse Benitez (Carlos Diehz). 

Fiennes again just brings an ease to his performance in hitting each note with relative but wholly convincing ease. With Tucci’s Aldo, Fiennes brings a nice warmth initially where you see the sense of an old friendship, held back just a bit for being appropriate to the situation, and even a little extra modest Fiennes’s in his delivery to suggest his admiration for the man he initially wants to see as Pope. Contrasting that is with Tedesco where Fiennes is terrific in presenting the impartiality as far as he can in his reactions to the man’s overt racism and espousing beliefs that Lawrence clearly finds deplorable. Fiennes brings the restrained disgust and quiet disinterest in the man in general within a surface graciousness. With Lithgow who Lawrence suspects is untrustworthy, in part due to an unverified claim that he as fired by the Pope, but I’m thinking more so because he’s played by John Lithgow, Fiennes brings a cautious distance and an exacting stare as he tries to uncover the truth of the man. With Benitez Fiennes offers a graciousness to the man initially within his eyes a quiet sense of interest due to the secretive nature of the man’s appointment. Lawrence though surprises all by opening the voting with a speech of his own, a character point of action that I feel still comes too early, but anyway, we get Fiennes amplifying the weight with such ease in his delivery that when Fiennes gives the speech about the sin of certainty, you absolutely believe it as the truth through his power as a performer. Fortunately, or unfortunately for Lawrence it leads to him receiving unexpected votes making him a player in this race too. 

The film then becomes the game of revelations where Fiennes must be the one often delivering the moment of action, the first coming in as early favorite Adeyemi is faced with a nun he had an affair with in the past. Leading Lawrence to confront him, and Fiennes is great in the way he brings just the right degree of a comforting warmth as he informs Adeyemi he will never be Pope, while still having this direct strength with his performance as he bluntly tells the man the truth. Meanwhile he finds damning evidence that Tremblay is crooked, where Fiennes is also terrific this time in bringing no warmth but more a righteous indignation as he stares down a man he knows to be phony. He’s also very effective in his dueling scenes between Tucci and Diehz. With Diehz, Benitez admits to voting for Lawrence, which Fiennes initially brings a real humbleness and surprise to this man. When it seems more that his vote could cost Aldo the election initially, Fiennes becomes more forceful in one of his loudest deliveries of “I don’t want your vote” which while bigger still tuned ideally for the role, as he reveals less a man trying to convince Benitez he’s not worthy, but rather trying to reinforce to himself that he is unworthy in his own mind. With Tucci in each successive scene, where it goes from Lawrence cautioning action against the much more direct Aldo to eventually Lawrence being the insistent one, is strong work from Fiennes as he goes from that more deferring quality in his early scenes, to just tipping his work to a more overt confidence to the point when he says that Aldo is too cowardly, Fiennes doesn’t deliver it with a hint of hate, but just a blunt truth in seeing his friend isn’t quite there to be the true leader. Their friendship though still feels intact and when Lawrence reveals his Pope name to Aldo, as it seems like he could win, Fiennes’s simple yet just so assured delivery of “John” shows a changed state in the relationship yet still the friendship remains. 

It probably sounds like all I do is have praise for Fiennes, which is largely true and what I’m about to get into isn’t a criticism of Fiennes rather just of the limitation of the part. Lawrence states his overall conflict with his faith and his complicated relationship with the Pope’s death since he was seeking to retire from his position just before he died, but the Pope insisted he stay. And bits of here are just a little messy, particularly the relationship part as we have a key scene where Lawrence enters the Pope’s sealed chambers to find evidence against Tremblay, and we have Fiennes break down over the Pope's death. Great emotional work from Fiennes, absolutely convincing, but the weight of it is a bit obscured because the relationship just is a little too vague at a fundamental writing level. Even the idea of Lawrence’s faith, beyond the faith in himself that part works, but the faith overall always feels indistinct for much of it then too easy by the end of it as you get the simplest good versus evil showdown between Benitez and Tedesco that makes it all seem far too easy to decide the conclave. Benitez becomes the easy person to believe in, and Lawrence is all but satisfied until we get the twist that the dark horse is intersex, but thankfully the Pope already knew about making it so Lawrence has no real decision to make. The reason I jammed that altogether is because it feels jammed together narratively, and too easily so as the previous Pope being truly all knowing makes it so Lawrence gets easy certainty by the end of it without truly having to make a decision. Which by the way,  none of this is Fiennes’s fault, he does what he can with these bits, it just never becomes as powerful of an arc to acceptance of Diehz as it could’ve been. The twist is there, but the film barely reckons with it. Having said that, Fiennes still has a final moment of greatness in his performance where he returns a turtle in the Vatican to outside, where Fiennes does so much in his walk and his expression that we see the weight from before is now alleviated, and you see man content in his more modest plight. And while I wish the final revelations to get Lawrence to this point were articulated by the script in a more dynamic, less simplistic, fashion Fiennes still delivers on that final note. Much like how Fiennes delivers throughout the film, he consistently elevates the material, every line he finds the avenue for, and is the most captivating aspect of the entirety of the film. And while this might not be my favorite performance of is, it is regardless a strong testament to his immense talent.