As I sat in a dark theater Sunday watching a buzzy new film about Catholic priests, I couldn’t stop thinking about Latter-day Saints.
More specifically, I was thinking about the mainstream movies and TV shows that get made about Latter-day Saints and why they often make me, a religion reporter who covers Latter-day Saints and other people of faith, roll my eyes — or scream.
While the source of my frustration differs slightly from project to project, my root concern stays the same: I think most shows on Latter-day Saints play into and benefit from religious stereotypes, embracing outsiders’ most scandalous assumptions rather than subverting them.
Take this summer’s big hit on Hulu, “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” The reality show follows young women, some with only a loose tie to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as they navigate challenges in their personal and professional lives.
While the series includes many religion references, like a title sequence filmed outside the Provo Utah Temple, its mission is to entertain, not boost public understanding of average Latter-day Saints.
It takes its plot points from previous reality shows, while sprinkling in just enough faith-related drama to justify the title.
And what a title it is. “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” catches your attention, even when you’re being crushed by an avalanche of new shows and movies. It’s no wonder that the creators went with that name rather than the more accurate “Watch women in Utah make bad choices.”
In other words, I understand that a show like “Secret Lives” is hard to resist. But after studying religion for 14 years, I also understand how much we lose when we build a faith story around low-hanging fruit.
As I watched “Conclave” Sunday, I wrestled with whether it was treating Catholics the same way Latter-day Saints have been treated — as a means to an entertaining end.
The movie, like the 2016 book it’s based on, offers a fictionalized account of the process through which Catholic cardinals choose a new pope. But the fiction is anchored in careful research, so non-Catholics learn quite a bit about the real-life church as the drama unfolds.
And believe me, there’s definitely drama, as there should be in any show or film about people jockeying for power. I was captivated, but also concerned about whether some plot points — like bribery and a sex scandal — were cheap shots.
Some reviewers, including Catholic ones, have raised similar issues, arguing that “Conclave” takes predictable, problematic jabs at the College of Cardinals.
But others have praised the movie’s relationship with religion, noting that filmmakers put extensive effort into understanding and then recreating the sacred rituals that anchor the plot.
I had an opportunity to speak with “Conclave” director Edward Berger this week as I worked through my complicated feelings about the film. He’s best known for writing and directing a number of German films, including “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film in 2023.
I was struck by Berger’s clear desire for Catholics to see themselves in the movie, as well as his clear frustration with those who claim “Conclave” is disrespectful to faith.
“For me, it’s really important that a cardinal sees this movie and says, ‘Oh, that’s sort of, that’s the way I hold my hands. That’s the right prayer,’” Berger said. He later added, “I don’t want the argument from the Catholic side to be that it was all fake and it was all silly. I want it to be as close to the truth as possible.”
Still, he said, “Conclave” is a movie, not a documentary.
“It has to employ fiction. To be entertaining, you need to employ fiction,” he said.
Berger confirmed that a very similar story about power and succession could have been told in a less controversial setting, like a major newspaper or the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.
But he said that something would be lost in translation: the opportunity to revel in mysterious, ancient traditions, and to invite viewers to revel in them, too.
The story “is most interesting, I believe, in the Catholic Church or in an organization like the Catholic Church because we can learn so much about it. It is so mysterious and there is so much theatricality about it, so much tradition. The tradition is incredibly interesting,” he said.
With that comment, Berger mostly quieted my fear that the people behind “Conclave” only see Catholicism as a plot device. They may not have made a movie that Pope Francis would love, but they also didn’t make “The Secret Lives of Catholic Priests.”
To be sure, there are things I would tweak in the movie if I had the chance, and I’m sure some Catholic viewers would want to change even more.
But what’s stuck with me since I left the theater is how well the set, score and tone captured the beauty and mystery of faith. “Conclave” took religion seriously, even as it entertained.
I’m still wrestling with the question of whether certain religious practices should be off-limits for script writers — and reality TV. But I’m now more aware of the potential value of faith-based fiction, especially in a world that’s less religious than it once was.
As Berger explained, “Conclave” will take many viewers into a world they know nothing about.
“Is the movie for Catholics? No, it is for Catholics and Jews and Christians in general and Muslims and Buddhists. It doesn’t really matter. And atheists, especially also for atheists,” he said.
When done well, faith-related shows and movies help people ask better questions about religion, rather than making them feel like they’ve got religion all figured out.