Real life reminds us twice of the film showing the fictitious election of the Pope

Although "Conclave" was released worldwide last year, I honestly didn't want to write about it - and this feeling was apparently shared by most Western critics, who, while noting the film's merits, called its plot "incredibly stupid".

However, circumstances have developed in such a way that it is simply impossible not to write about it. Firstly, "Conclave" is about the election of the Pope, and literally in the last few days the world media have been full of news that the real Pope Francis, at 88 years old, was hospitalized with pneumonia. Secondly, this weekend the film received the Screen Actors Guild Award for the best acting ensemble. Thirdly, finally, it has a good chance of winning the Oscars in several categories.

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Overall, "Conclave" would have been very good, if not for its last twenty minutes, where the plot takes a radical turn. One of the American film critics wrote that the moviegoers in the hall where he watched the film were constantly laughing for all those twenty minutes - and there were reasons for that, as we will now explain.

In essence, the plot of "Conclave" boils down to the fact that after the death of the Pope, during the elections for a new one, their leader (or rather, to call him "the leader") successively cuts off the candidates who received the most votes. First, it is a black cardinal who, as it turns out, had a sexual affair in his youth and has an illegitimate child. Then, a white cardinal who, as it turns out, bribed other cardinals in order to become Pope in the future.

But when the secret of the third candidate, for whom the cardinals voted (by the way, after he accused them of various mortal sins, which is already illogical), is revealed, Fiennes's character is already running out of strength and conviction. The secret of the third contender, the cardinal from Afghanistan, is that when he went in for an appendectomy, the doctors discovered (pardon the anatomical details, but they are necessary) a uterus and ovaries.

He confesses this to Fiennes' character twenty minutes before the end of the film, after which the audience's laughter began, which was written about above. The reason for this is simple - the viewer, firstly, has no idea who in this case, in terms of gender, the cardinal from Afghanistan is and, secondly, can a person with such physiological features be elected to a purely male position. But the ordinary viewer sees how, before his eyes, a film that looked like a political thriller suddenly turns into a tabloid novel (by the way, "Conclave" is a film adaptation).

However, in all other "cinema dimensions" "Conclave" is really good. Just don't take it as a "report from behind closed doors" during the real election of the Pope.

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