Conclave, Edward Berger's new film, is based on the novel of that title by Robert Harris, which the movie mostly follows. The book has a curious beginning: the death of Pope Francis. Well, there's an author's note that ends with this disclaimer: "despite certain superficial resemblances. . .the late Holy Father depicted in Conclave [is not] meant to be a portrait of the current pope."

Yes, but the book opens with the death of the Supreme Pontiff in his apartment at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the Vatican guest house, in which no other pope has lived. None is likely to in the future, although Mr. Harris, a well-known British liberal, may hope future popes embrace Papa Bergoglio's liberality in this regard.

But not even Francis possesses the peculiar. . .liberality of Conclave's Cardinal Vincente Benitez.

From far and wide, they come, these red-hatted Cardinals: young and old. By tradition, they are prohibited from politicking, so, of course, at all the pre-conclave meetings, the scheming and the intriguing begin. (Spoiler alert for what follows.)

But there's a surprise: a Cardinal shows up without the trappings of a Prince of the Church - none of the crimson finery symbolizing his willingness to be martyred for Christ. Nobody knows him well; most have never heard of him.

He explains that the late pope had elevated him to the cardinalate in pectore. In the heart: secretly. This is Cardinal Benitez (played by Carlos Diehz). Cardinal Benitez is a Mexican who has served in Congo and in Afghanistan.

Mr. Diehz will be the least well-known among the cast of Conclave's cardinal-actors, which includes Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and John Lithgow among others.

Cardinal Lawrence (Mr. Fiennes in a fine performance) is the conclave's dean. In the book, the dean's name is Jacopo Baldassare Lomeli. The filmmakers may have decided a change of name and nationality would distance the character from the actual Dean of the College of Cardinals, Giovanni Battista Re. Casting Mr. Fiennes rather than an Italian actor dispels any similarity between the movie's dean and the soon-to-be-91-year-old Cardinal Re, who, in any case, more resembles the movie's arch-conservative Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto).

Cardinal Lawrence decides the small, frail Cardinal Benitez must be assumed to be telling the truth about his secret appointment, and Benitez is hurried to Gammarelli or wherever to get measured and fitted with the accouterments of his office. Benitez would rather not do all this because he's a humble servant of God.

Humble but not honest.

He fails to share a secret with Lawrence and the College of Cardinals.

And now a spoiler alert

As the political schemers fall by the wayside, the charming mystery man sweeps to victory in the conclave's voting to become Pope Innocent, the fourth of that name. This young liberal from the peripheries might seem the perfect person to replace Pope Francis were it not for a small problem: Benitez isn't qualified to be a pope.

This is because he's a she.

Our mystery "man" is a sexually confused "intersex" person, born with ambiguous genitalia but genetically XX (female), not XY (male), and was on the way to visit a Swiss gender-reassignment clinic when the dying pope tapped him for the cardinalate.

So, our new Pope Innocent IV is not. . .innocent. How could a Catholic woman engage in such a deception? How could such a person ever be called Your Holiness? Why would she not have mentioned anything about it to anyone?

At the very last instant, when Innocent is ready to be vested for her Urbi et Orbi speech from the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square, a perplexed Cardinal Lawrence has just been informed by an aide of the discovery of Benitez's proposed clinic visit, and asks Innocent IV what treatment was being sought. In the book, Innocent sighs, "I believe the clinical terms are surgery to correct a fusion of the labia majora and minora, and a clitoropexy." In the film, it's simplified to "hysterectomy."

The dea...