Cooking and Conclave
My review of the movie, a forthcoming Sale, and a Happy Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving Eve! I am dashing around doing several thousand things today. One of which, I am absolutely thrilled to say, is picking up our old van from the shop where it has been moldering since September. What a great day! No longer (until the next car dies) will I have to drive people to work or school. And, though my soul shudders to say it, I will be able to start teaching child number four to drive. Though maybe I can put that off just one day longer.
Also, because I am filled to the brim with the milk of human kindness, and because this appears to be the custom of the hour, I’m going to offer a 20% off Holiday Extravaganza discount for Demotivations from Thursday through Monday. I don’t actually know how to do it yet, but I’m going to be learning today. Also, if you love to be Demotivated, and would like to share the experience with your friends, there is a pretty easy way to give a subscription as a gift. I’m going to be figuring that out today as well.
Anyway, I’m over at the Christian Research Journal with a review of the movie, Conclave. This afternoon I’ll be on the Ride Home with John and Kathy (I think around 4:40). And I’ll be posting pictures here and there over the next three days, and spending time on the Substack app, and generally eating my way from one hour to the next. Hope to see you all in the cyber world as we all thank God for all his many gifts and mercies.
Here’s a taste of my review (which is FULL of Spoilers, reader beware):
“One sin I fear above all others,” adjures Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the prelate whose task it is to organize the election of a new pope in the movie Conclave. The audience in the theater didn’t draw a collective breath, except for a subdued snore from the person a row over from me who had fallen asleep as soon as the first scene ended. What is that great sin? “Certainty.” “Faith is living,” he explains, “because it walks hand in hand with doubt.” “Let us pray,” he concludes, “for a pope who doubts.”
Conclave is an adaptation of Robert Harris’s 2016 novel by the same name. The film is well paced and visually rich with intriguing dialogue and stunning cinematography. For a church lover such as myself, the movie delivered on aesthetics at least. The meticulous attention to vestments, the gorgeous replica of the Sistine Chapel, the very beautiful pens used for the ballots, the satisfying clunk of the thick, almost luxurious paper falling into the metal pot while each cardinal intoned an oath, the nuns’ habits billowing as they moved across the square, waiting for news, made the two hours fly by pleasurably. And yet, for a movie about church politics, the glaring omission of the purpose for which the church exists doomed the project to failure.
Politics All the Way Down. The film opens with Cardinal Lawrence rushing to the bedside of the dying pope. He, Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci), and the villainous Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow) kneel in prayer, the shadows of death flickering over their faces. The pope breathes his last, and the ring is rather brutally removed from his finger and the seal and ring destroyed. None of the men in the room appear to trust each other. Lawrence is bowed down with the burden of arranging the conclave, a task made more onerous and painful as he gradually discovers that Tremblay is not being open and honest about the substance of his last audience with the Holy Father. Was it a friendly meeting? What was said and by whom?
Read the rest here. And check out the podcast I recorded with Melanie:
Have a great day!