2024 Telluride Film Festival Capsule Reviews: ‘Conclave,’ Nickel Boys,’ ‘Maria’

In part one of three sets of capsule reviews from the 2024 Telluride Film Festival, I take a look at Conclave, Nickel Boys and Maria.

CONCLAVE (dir. Edward Berger, Focus Features)

Conclave is a wild melange of Election, Drag Race All Stars, Survivor and the Pope goes to January 6. It has an airport novel viscosity to it, consumable. Ralph Fiennes is stoic here as the Dean of cardinals set to vote for a new Pope when the current one dies. The behind the scenes vote counting and alliance building is interesting, and there are quite a few direct and indirect references a the U.S. systems of voting (it starts to recall Kevin McCarthy’s 15 attempts to be named House Speaker) and Isabella Rossellini makes copies. The really juicy performances come from Stanley Tucci as an American liberal who does not want to be Pope and Sergio Castellitto as a vaping Italian right winger who wants it more than anyone. Horribly intrusive score and sound design is constantly overeplaying its hand to say THIS IS THRILLING ISN’T THIS THRILLING when it never needs to be. Coming right after director Edward Berger’s multi-Oscar winner All Quiet on the Western Front, a film I loved, the choices here feel incongruent to the material. Randomly heightened visual moments pepper the film but feel unnaturally inserted. Curious how the final moments will play to a wide audience as the ending, if you haven’t read the book or don’t know, feels like comes out of nowhere before settling in on its final coda.

Grade: C

Focus Features will release Conclave in select theaters on November 1, 2024 and wide on November 8.

NICKEL BOYS (dir. RaMell Ross, Amazon MGM)

Nickel Boys is a stunner. It’s a barrier breaking work from RaMell Ross as much as his Oscar-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening was. Adapting Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book about Elwood and Turner, two young Black boys thrown into a brutal reform school in 1960s Florida, Ross utilizes everything that made Hale County so unique and makes his narrative feature debut an equally breathtaking achievement. Audacious POV perspective with gorgeous cinematography from Jomo Fray and a rich tapestry of score and sound work make the film evocative of The Zone of Interest aurally and visually. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor turns in another good performance but it’s the pair of Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson, true stars in the making, who are so spectacular here. Vulnerable and brave, they imbue Elwood and Turner with wonder and fear, with a deep affection and protection of each other. Powerful work from both. This might be the movie of the year.

Grade: A

Amazon MGM will release Nickel Boys in U.S. theaters on October 25.

MARIA (dir. Pablo Larraín, Netflix)

After Jackie and Spencer, Maria beautifully concludes Pablo Larraín’s exquisite trilogy with the hand of a true maestro, giving Angelina Jolie the performance of her career and La Callas the diva send off she deserves. You can chew on Ed Lachman’s gorgeously grainy cinematography like a sumptuous feast as the orange, deep reds, golds and browns of the production design of Guy Hendrix Dyas and the gag-worthy costumes from Massimo Cantini Parrini work in concert with it masterfully. Larraín understands the allure of famous women but more so respects their self-imposed isolation from an adoring or sometimes abusively maddening crowd. Like with Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart, he’s allows his actresses to pull back the layers of their subjects themselves. Jolie, no stranger to a blinding spotlight on her personal and professional life, is the perfect choice for Maria Callas, a convergence of right role, right time as she navigates the final days of the legendary American opera singer. She is the diva incarnate but, through Larraín’s thoughtful eyes, that’s not a derogatory moniker. Adulation is a drug for Callas, providing her and us with moments of exultation and sadness. Kodi Smit-McPhee pops in as an Albert Maysles kind of documentarian, giving us a classic storytelling device but an effective one. Fine supporting work from Pierfrancesco Favino and Alba Rohrwacher as her faithful servants, always willing to shower her with compliments (“Magnificent!”) or move a piano on a whim. The film is also the connective tissue of the trilogy, linking back to Spencer with Anne Boleyn (whom Callas played on stage) and more directly, with Jackie Kennedy by way of appearances from Aristotle Onassis and John F. Kennedy. The Kennedy moment walks the finest of lines but ends up being one of the film’s truest moments of two people who truly understand each other in a way that only they can.

Grade: A-

Netflix will release the film in the U.S. later this year.