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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

I've probably seen a dozen movies and TV shows about various conclaves. This movie seemed like a well-made and perfectly normal movie about the subject... with a couple lines tacked on at the very end in a grasping attempt to seem edgy.

Jude Law's The Young Pope or even Jeremy Iron's The Borgias covered the subject better imho.

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The point of Conclave isn't to demonstrate how the cardinals vote and the pope picking process. It's to analyze and dwell on how people are treated and viewed. What makes you trust and distrust someone who hasn't been entirely honest with you? The ending twist isn't to be edgy it's to bring up a topic that many Catholics need to deal with relative to the trust thesis of the movie.

The point is whatever you make of it. Movies (art in general) don't have a "point" that you need to get right.

Movies do have a point. Sure art has a “eye of the beholder” view-point but most art has intention the artist is trying to covey. People don’t just make a movie and say “hey what if we tack this wild ending on to it, that would really confuse people”.

The artist having an intention when creating the art doesn't mean the purpose of the beholder is to find out that intention, or to "get the point". You're mixing stuff up.

It’s also not-not the intention. So my claim that it is the point of the film is still valid, whether you think I’m “mixed up” about perceiving art or not.

Yes, trying to find the "original intention" is as valid as anything else, but not more valid than anything else, that was my point. Because it's very usual for discussion to be centered only on that.

Eh, it’s a twist that panders to yesterday’s culture warriors. People who enjoy having their own worldview affirmed and then making others “deal with” that worldview.

You're aware it's based on a book ~10 years old?

Don't let the facts get in the way of him affirming his own worldview!

Lol it’s not pandering to anyone. It’s making a point that’s timely and the fact that you are finding way to attempt to disregard it or try and disqualify it as a valid point means that the ending does a great job. This is the era you live in whether you shrug everyone off as “culture warriors” or not.

Would you have wanted the ending to be the pope to be elected and everyone hugging and waving goodbye as the camera ascends to the heavens, where God then turns and winks at the audience? Or do you want something to talk about that has an effective tie to the theme of the film.

Watch a documentary if you want an accurate description of the papal voting process.

I don’t think it was edgy at the end. It left it extremely morally ambiguous on behalf of the protagonist rather than making him too saintly. It was left unclear how he felt about the ending

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