Pamela Astarte

Conclave is a thriller in slow motion behind the closed doors and antiquated, bizarre and nonsensical trappings of the Catholic Church at its weirdest in the illustrious confines of the Vatican! You all know the plot so I won't bore you with those details, but the script falls short in only allowing the most extreme and didactically opposed candidates to be investigated. There are over 200 men sitting there and somehow only 4 or 5 are being considered as the next Pope?? When this unknown barely recognized cardinal from some South American country who is working, in of all places Kabul, shows up we know he's going to upset the apple cart, we just don't know how until the denouement which is BEYOND ABSURD! I actually liked this movie and its slow and repetitious cadence until "the great reveal" that this man is an hermaphrodite! Is the author trying to say only a man with a uterus can have compassion for his fellowman?? RIDICULOUS!

The movie was extremely disjointed, camera angles all over the place in some kind of misguided attempt at visual artistry. The story line got increasingly jumbled and then completely bogged down in who would/should inherit a family heirloom, that seemed to have an exceedingly complicated and essentially malevolent history. It's garbled story seemed to involve abusive parental control, death and treachery. The histrionic yelling was relentless and I just wanted it to stop! On the other hand, the ending was amazing! The atavistic black heritage, from Voodoo to Christian style exorcism was fascinating. It spoke to the raw energy of the African experience that is so often overlooked and denied and was here on full display! The trance state, and ultimate release was profoundly moving. Thank you for that willingness to honor your spiritual ancestry!!

There is not one moment of real authentic human interaction in this film until the very last few minutes of this movie when the main character slumps down on the security guy's chest in surrender. We had to wait 2 hours and 16 minutes for anyone to act like a human being! This was the only moving and real moment in this film of pure idiotic mayhem and total absurdity, that was unfortunately not even funny.

This is a truly awful movie, poorly acted, a ridiculously inappropriate gag filled dialogue when discussing serious issues like teen drug use and rape. Only the two roommates showed any true human emotions, every other actor's performance felt contrived stereotypic, and predictable. The main character was extremely unlikable and borderline schizophrenic. The plot line was almost impossible to follow as one scene jumped to another scene in another timeline, another place and with other characters so often it was simply a complete word/script salad! And the final scene with jokes about rape??? Who does that???

The strength of this movie is clearly in its female characters, both in their lack of voice- Celie, to the brazen, dangerous vocal outbursts of Sofia, a fabulous performance by Danielle Brooks. The soul stirring and tender singing by Barrino brought me to tears, especially in her heart rending "I'm here". The audience was very vocal in their reactions to the women's attempts to declare their independence from the male patriarchal structure. Lots of whooping and cheering and applause! It was a strange choice however to make Mister become the good guy and bring Nettie back from Africa. I felt it was a bit too hard to believe that this particular tiger would change his stripes to that degree! The lesbian affair with Shug was also hard to believe, it felt contrived. There were a few numbers that could have been cut and didn't serve the story or plot, but overall a heart wrenching depiction of female oppression in the deep South.

I'll give this film 2 stars for costumes and the authentic and well researched look of the 50s and 60s. The 2 main characters did the best they could with a lousy script that basically made Bernstein look like a buffoon, not sure why this was their choice?? They decided to focus on his homosexuality and not on his art, poor choice in my opinion. His wife's character was written as a manipulative puppet with no backbone that he somehow adored although flaunting his lovers in her face, none of this given any true focus or meaning besides superficial and campy stereotypical behavior. They both played their characters as pastiche with no depth whatsoever, unitl she's dying and even then shows no real emotion. A very sad and superficial homage overall!

These Banshees are not mythic, they are all internal, and here are in men, not women, as they are usually depicted. It is a movie about extreme isolation and the bonds that come of necessity. This small island off the coast of Ireland is as desolate as the options these men have; some have their music, others their beer and for the lucky friendship. A deep friendship is the gold of this realm and connection to family is sacrosanct. The tender love between brother and sister and the deep shame and degradation of the cop-father and his simpleton son are depicted with true grace. It's a deeply troubling movie as we see the minds of these simple men dissolve as they take drastic, violent measures to assert their painful and in this case, devastating choices.