Secrets of the Conclave review – Infinitely more dull than the Hollywood version

Earlier this year, before Pope Leo XIV entered the assembly of cardinals that would ultimately select him as the next leader of the Catholic Church, he watched the film Conclave to get an idea of what to expect. He wasn’t alone. Viewership of the movie, which starred Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci as politicking cardinals, soared in the days after Pope Francis’s death as life mirrored art. Memes, the media and a livestream from Vatican City culminated in a sort of conclave mania never before seen in pop culture.

It made sense. Faithfully adapted from Robert Harris’s 2016 novel, Conclave depicted the religious meeting of its title as a bitchy and backstabbing Hollywood affair. The Real Housewives of Vatican City. It was easy, then, to imagine what was going on behind the closed doors of the real Sistine Chapel, where the real cardinals were voting on their real next pope. If the film was to be believed, it was a lot of vaping, whisper-shouting, and backroom deals. The reality, as shown in BBC Two’s new documentary Secrets of the Conclave, is infinitely more dull.

An introductory sequence recapping the media coverage of the conclave plays up the dramatics: the swishing of red robes, the swaying of crucifixes, the gold – everywhere gold! But mostly it serves as a reminder that the moment has passed and that this documentary missed it entirely. There’s an effort to reignite interest, with a cinematic orchestral score and the participation of the much-talked-about-at-the-time Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, who had been a frontrunner for the papacy and who is the most charismatic of the cardinals to appear here as talking heads. Chirping away and flitting about, they look a lot like the little red birds to which they lend their name.

There are some fun details. An interview with the long-time papal tailor reveals that he makes cassocks and zucchettos in all sizes to prepare for every outcome of the conclave. “Large like Pope John XXIII or slim like Pope Paul VI,” he says, marking out the pieces on paper. “Medium could have been Pope Francis at the start, but at the end, he was more robust. A little large, even.” It is, I suppose, interesting to learn that the floors of the Sistine Chapel are plastered over for the conclave because of the tripping hazard that the original mosaic tiles pose to the cardinals, many of them elderly. It is also mildly surprising to discover that the hotel rooms are assigned by lottery rather than according to any papal popularity contest. Cardinal Tagle recalls a sweet moment in which he gave Cardinal Prevost (now the Pope) a piece of candy to calm his nerves. Also noteworthy was the decision of the newly elected Pope, an American born in Chicago, not to speak any English on that first public appearance on the balcony.

But mostly these details are humdrum: the mayor of Rome speaks about the immense planning required to prepare for the city’s hundreds of thousands of visitors; the cardinals recall having their iPads confiscated and their electric toothbrushes checked by officials to maintain the no-contact terms of the sequestration; the meals served back at the hotel were “simple but perfectly adequate”. For your religious scholar, maybe this is riveting stuff, but your average viewer will likely find it a bore. “We had breakfast together, and then some of us walked over to the Sistine Chapel. Others went by bus,” is a typical line of dialogue.

Crucially, there was apparently no scheming or even campaigning going on. According to the Archbishop of Chicago, “What we did was identify the needs of the Church at this time, and the qualities needed in an individual to move it that way.” Conversation between the cardinals had “no rancour” and “no harsh words” – which is nice to hear, but doesn’t make for very captivating television.

The word conclave comes from the Latin cum clave, meaning “with a key” – a reference to the secrecy surrounding what happens once those doors to the outside world are closed. Watching this staid documentary, I wonder whether the Catholic Church would’ve been better off keeping the doors shut on this most curious and ancient of traditions. I can feel any sense of mystery or majesty being zapped out with each passing tidbit. Knowing that a chemical additive is used in the stove to ensure the smoke sent out the chimney is white or black sort of takes the wonder out of it. Likewise, the fact that the cardinals are given a score sheet, to keep a tally of who is pulling ahead in the vote, may be practical – but like this documentary, it’s not very awe-inspiring.