Rating: R | Runtime: 104 minutes
Release Date: October 18th, 2024 (Canada / USA)
Studio: Elevation Picture / Bleecker Street Media
Director(s): Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson & Guy Maddin
Writer(s): Evan Johnson

It is the dark ending our species deserves.

People like to say that movie stars no longer exist today, but Bleecker Street has chosen to seemingly give experimental Canadian auteur Guy Maddin’s latest film Rumours a wide release in America based solely on Cate Blanchett’s involvement. Does the Oscar-winning actor have what it takes to coax people to the box office for a surreally absurdist satire about the vapid, cartoonish hollowness of career politicians who meet at the G7 to write the next great empty speech? I guess we will find out on Sunday.

Co-directed with Galen Johnson and screenwriter Evan Johnson, this comedic nightmare follows the leaders of Germany (Blanchett’s Hilda), England (Nikki Amuka-Bird’s Cardosa), America (Charles Dance’s Edison), France (Denis Ménochet’s Sylvain), Japan (Takehiro Hira’s Tatsuro), Italy (Rolando Ravello’s Antonio), and Canada (Roy Dupuis’ Maxime) as they sit inside a newly constructed gazebo on castle grounds to brainstorm a way forward through their current, intentionally vague crisis. Rather than actually compose something of merit, however, they become lost in their own personal woes … and victims to an attack by Iron Age bog bodies.

Add a giant human brain, an unstable EU advisor (Alicia Vikander’s Celestine), and an AI chatbot scouring the world for pedophiles by targeting those who hold the most power and it’s no wonder these seven “leaders” find themselves on the edge of sanity. Some just want to die. Some wanted to die, but now have the newfound strength to save the day. Others merely want to finish the task assigned to them so they may live forever amongst the great orators with nothing of substance to say. And then there’s Antonio—attending his first summit—happily offering the rest of them slices of meat he’s taken from the buffet and stashed in his jacket.

These characters are at once pathetically ill-equipped for conflict and over-confident in thinking they can conquer whatever comes their way. They speak to each other with the same flowery platitudes that they do their constituents, not because they have things to hide, but because they have little to actually say. They want to pick each other’s brains to crib off their successes and avoid their failures. They oftentimes want to get in each other’s pants regardless of how dire things appear. And they’ve very clearly drunk their own Kool-aid as far as believing in their importance despite possessing the self-awareness to know no one else cares.

Rumours becomes the wilderness adventure of a bunch of idiots spiraling through uncertain mystery who prove more desperate to look good than to survive their current predicament. There are few better ends than martyrdom to cement one’s legacy after all. What’s the alternative anyway? Retirement? The private sector? Yuck. Thankfully, none of them needs to solve anything anyway. They must only put the public at ease with an acknowledgement that they know things are bad and are working towards working towards a solution somewhere down the line … if anyone is still paying attention after something worse arises.

It’s a humorous if overlong ride. Blanchett, Amuka-Bird, and Dupuis are great in their triangle vying for control (and, in the case of the former two women, the latter’s affections). Ravello, Dance, and Hira do well as comic relief in the background as Ménochet steals the show doing the same in the foreground. Those paying attention to the degradation of politicians into empty suits in it for the money won’t gain new insight, but it is a laugh watching grown adults with nuclear arsenals smiling like children when someone compliments the dumb thing they said.

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Nikki Amuka-Bird, Charles Dance, Rolando Ravello, Alicia Vikander, Cate Blanchett, Roy Dupuis, Takehiro Hira, and Denis Ménochet in RUMOURS; courtesy of Bleecker Street.