This October, voters have a choice: do you vote for the candidate you believe in? Or do you vote to keep a right-wing strongman out of power? Ideally, those goals and desires will overlap, and while this question has resonance for American voters this fall, the specific electorate at hand happens to be a group of cardinals, sequestered in the Vatican in Edward Berger’s “Conclave.”

Adapted from the Robert Harris novel by Peter Straughan, the handsomely rendered and meticulously acted “Conclave” encompasses these universal electoral struggles within the tightly controlled and rigorously regimented ritual of electing a new pope. But rife with backroom skulduggery among the conniving cardinals, as well as a Pakula-esque penchant for stairwell whisper campaigns among the power brokers, “Conclave” is less of a searching moral philosophy piece than it is a scandalously twisty papal potboiler.

Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is charged with stewarding the conclave after the death of the pope, a job he is reluctant to tackle. The white smoke can only go up when one of the cardinals receives a 72-vote majority, and shepherding this bunch of squabbling, power-hungry backstabbers to that number is going to require a herculean feat of delicate diplomacy — and maybe even an act of God or two.

This would probably be an easier job for a less-principled cardinal. Alas, the burden to elect the right pope weighs heavy on Lawrence, and the task is complicated by the fact that unsavory rumors and controversy swirl around three of the most ambitious front-runners: the meddling Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow), the too-suave Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati) and the ultra-traditional, constantly vaping Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellito). Lawrence, however, would like to throw his support toward the quietly progressive Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci), who shirks from the responsibility.

The conclave is also disrupted by an unexpected guest: a cardinal secretly appointed by the pope. The Archbishop of Kabul, a mysterious Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz) arrives unannounced, his presence sending a ripple through the familiar dynamic, a quiet bomb waiting to go off as he becomes a surprising dark horse candidate for the gig.

Lawrence himself refuses such ambition outwardly, citing a crisis of faith, but there are those who accuse him of harboring such desires for the job. Fiennes, who is so restrained in his performance it is almost pained, manages to let the shadow of hope cross his carefully composed face. Maybe, if the votes go his way, it might actually happen. This subtle subplot, performed so beautifully by Fiennes, is the true jewel at the center of the film.

The cloistered politicking devolves into lunch-room antics and social warfare akin to a high school movie, but this swirling whirlpool of interpersonal drama is grounded by the pomp and circumstance of centuries-old ritual; garments and smoke and hierarchy. However, Berger takes a modern approach to the film’s style: production designer Suzie Davies delivers a set of dramatic reds, whites and blacks; harsh, shiny surfaces with a certain coldness to the environs. Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine utilizes the unique scale and scope of the Vatican to deliver breathtaking compositions and slowly creeping zooms that add to the pressure of the claustrophobic atmosphere. The slashing strings of composer Volker Bertelmann’s score offers the kind of high-tension drama that conveys the stakes of the situation.

But the richness of the filmmaking, including the powerful acting, obfuscates the fact that the story itself is a pretty thin and silly mystery with twists that cheapen the intellectual quandary at the center of the tale. The script wants to wrestle with the question about whether the church can make progress and adapt to the modern world, which is reflected in the modernity of the style, but all the subtext is text, it doesn’t invite the audience to dig deeper, providing all the questions and answers bluntly, then distracting us with a variety of surprising turns in the story that are strangely all presented with the same amount of scandal, though they do not exist on the same moral scale.

The filmmakers present “Conclave” as a film that seems like it’s deeper than it actually is. In reality, it’s a bit of down-the-middle thriller filmmaking that flirts with tawdriness as it presents the inner workings of the highly secretive Vatican. While the screenplay’s themes can be extrapolated to broader sociopolitical questions, distracted by its own flashy revelations, it fails to impart any new or surprising insights beyond the basic notion that cardinals, they’re just like us.

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‘CONCLAVE’

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG (for thematic material and smoking)

Running time: 2:00

How to watch: In theaters Oct. 25

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