After the surprising success of his Oscar-nabbing All Quiet on the Western Front, director Edward Berger presumably had his pick of big, significant projects to serve as his follow-up. It’s fascinating, then, that he opted for a different sort of war, which is made clear when the character played by Stanley Tucci shouts, “It is a war!” in response to an entreaty to cool his hyperbolic lamenting about the latest inconvenient turn in the process to select a new Pope. No matter how comparatively insular Berger’s new film be, taking place among a collection of Catholic cardinals sequestered for the purpose of choosing their new leader, he definitely has not scaled back in cinematic ambition.

Conclave sticks close to Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the reluctant Dean of the College of Colleges who is charged with presiding over the tense, tenuous process of selecting the new pope. Although his outward demeanor emphasizes dignified neutrality, Cardinal Lawrence in enmeshed in tense backroom debates about who should ascend to the revered role. He prefers the progressive Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) and might tolerate the moderate, ambitious Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow). He certainly couldn’t tolerate the proudly regressive Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto).

The strongest scenes in Berger’s flawed All Quiet on the Western Front were those that revolved around the stiff formality of backroom maneuvering. The ability to make stern conversations and procedural jockeying into compelling cinema serves Berger well here. In adapting Robert Harris’s 2016 novel, screenwriter Peter Straughan crafts multiple scenes of fervently murmured conversations. Straughan also leans into the floridly extravagant plot turns like a bicyclist taking tight turns. The potboiler qualities of the story are a boon in many ways, lending the film a alluring energy. Those same qualities, and the corresponding need to keep multiple plates spinning furiously, can tilt the film perilously close to silliness, albeit without ever quite lapsing all the way into it.

Much of the weight of Conclave comes from the performances. Fiennes locks in with the internalized anguish that’s long been his specialty, and everyone else lunges into their big and small scenes with the right level of actorly panache. Isabella Rossellini takes her nun character beyond the one-scene wonder offered by the script through a series of perfectly perturbed reaction shots, and Brían F. O’Byrne comes up with an impressive variety of uncomfortable, flummoxed reactions to the scandalous details he unearths as left-hand-man investigator employed by Cardinal Lawrence. These flares of personality up and down the cast of characters typify the spirit of the film. Conclave prospers with its sly, smart commitment to making serious, dry plot details into sprightly entertainment.