Major spoilers for Conclave.
I was so excited to see Conclave, I actually went to the theater to watch it right when it came out. Money and time well spent – Conclave is one of my favorite films of the year, and I believe it’s a major awards contender. Most people believe it will be shortlisted for the Best Picture Oscar, and many awards-prognosticators predict that Ralph Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini will pick up Oscar nominations. From what I’ve seen, there hasn’t been a larger cultural conversation about Conclave, I think because people don’t want to “spoil” the ending, the big reveal about the new pope. Stop reading now if you haven’t seen it yet and you want to be surprised!
So, it turns out that Megyn Kelly did not see Conclave in the theater. She waited to rent it or stream it, and she watched it over the weekend. She hated it, and she got on Twitter to bitch about it, and she spoiled the big reveal:
Just made the huge mistake of watching the much-celebrated “Conclave” & it is the most disgusting anti-Catholic film I have seen in a long time. Shame on Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci & John Lithgow for starring in it & shame on director Edward Berger (among others). “Spoiler:” They make THE POPE INTERSEX! This is the big exciting twist at the end. I wish I had known so I wouldn’t have watched it. There are almost no redeeming characters in the movie – every cardinal is morally bankrupt/repulsive. The only exception of course is the intersex pope (who – surprise! – has female reproductive parts) & the cardinal who keeps her secret – bc of course that kind of Catholic secret-keeping must be lionized. I’m disgusted. What a thing to release to streaming just in time for Christmas. They would never do this to Muslims, but Christians/Catholics are always fair game to mock/belittle/smear.
“There are almost no redeeming characters in the movie – every cardinal is morally bankrupt/repulsive.” Almost as if the Catholic Church is run by flawed men who are hungry for power and drawn to authority over women and children. Honestly, that was what Conclave was mostly about – all of the cardinals are flawed, some of them more than others. Some are racist, some have broken their vows, some are too politically active for their own good, and some are just bad at playing politics. Some are more progressive, some are bordering on fascist. Conclave plays out like a mystery, with Ralph Fiennes’s cardinal acting as the Poirot/Miss Marple trying to figure out what various cardinals are really up to. By the time we get to the end, the person who is elected pope is lovely, but he also has a secret: he’s intersex and he had no idea until well into adulthood.
Megyn posted her hissy fit on Sunday, hours before the Golden Globes. Conclave’s screenwriter Peter Straughan won a Golden Globe, and he was asked about Kelly’s comments. Straughan said, in part: “I don’t think the film is anti-Catholic. I was brought up Catholic. I was an altar boy. I think the core message of ‘Conclave’ is about the church always having to re-find its spiritual core, because it deals so much with power. That’s always been a careful, difficult balance. To me, that was a very central Catholic ideal that I was brought up with. I stand by it.” Plus, he just adapted it from the book!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Getty.
