Conclave: Holy Shit, This Movie Will Blow Your Mind

On the day after the election, with the results not what I’d hoped for, I sat down to watch Conclave—a film that, unexpectedly, met my mood perfectly in its themes of uncertainty, doubt, and a shaken sense of stability.

In Conclave, cardinals gather to elect a new Pope, each so certain they know what’s best for the church, each convinced of their own understanding of the truth. But as the story unfolds, we see their convictions challenged and their assumptions about the right leader completely upended. Without giving too much away, their ultimate choice confronts them with the unexpected—a figure they hadn’t seen coming, with a story that redefines their entire notion of identity and truth. Their certainty, it turns out, had blinded them.

I thought about my own certainties, about who I was and how I thought my life should unfold. For years, I had a clear image of myself as straight, an athlete, a rule-follower, with a path that seemed so clear. But it was in stepping away from those certainties that I found my truest self, that I realized I am queer, a creator, someone more open and complex than any one path could define. The journey to this discovery was full of doubt and fear, but it was also where I found the real magic—where life’s mystery finally made sense.

What if we applied this same unknowing to the world around us, to the people we think we know, even to those we fear or misunderstand? Conclave left me with a message that hit home, especially in the wake of an election: if we let go of the need for certainty, we open ourselves up to transformation, connection, and even grace. In a world desperate to be right, Conclave reminded me that it’s in the unknowing, the waiting, the mystery, that we can find ourselves—and each other—anew.