It must have seemed such a delicious premise – a Buñuel-esque comedy about world leaders trapped at a luxury retreat as the apocalypse looms. With cult director and installation artist Guy Maddin directing alongside his regular collaborators Galen and Evan Johnson, one can understand why Cate Blanchett, Charles Dance, and the rest of the starry cast signed up for Rumours. Unfortunately, it all wears a little thin. And while there are some excellent jokes and startling visuals, there isn’t enough going on in the movie to sustain its running time.
Political satires date rapidly. This one, opening the weekend that the French government is collapsing and Germany is reeling from its own coalition crisis, runs close to the wire. Elegantly coiffed and suitably accented, Blanchett plays Chancellor Hilda Ortmann, who is hosting the annual meeting where the leaders of the G7 nations have gathered to collaborate on a typically bland statement about an undisclosed global peril. For reasons that are never quite explained, the American president is played by Charles Dance at his most plummily English.
The British Prime Minister Cardosa Dewindt is played by Nikki Amuka-Bird – her performance reminiscent of Teresa May at her most uptight and anxious. There to observe proprieties, she maintains her composure fending off the Canadian premier, played by the heartthrob Roy Dupuis, when he seeks to reignite their affair. In his distress, he's easy pray for Germany, who is intent on seducing him.
The leaders of France, Italy, and Japan are portrayed by Denis Ménochet, Rolando Ravello, and Takehiro Hiro, who bring juicy physical comedy to their roles as ineffective stooges. Swedish star Alicia Vikander gets a chance to use her native tongue when she turns up halfway through as the Secretary General of the European Commission, another of Canada's ex-lovers.
Rumours is a film made up of sly references and surreal jokes that make audiences feel clever because they get the humour; at the festival screening I attended, the laughter was more knowing than spontaneous.
The film is not all talk. Zombie-like bog men engage in a masturbation session around a fire. The G7 leaders flee through a marshy wood to avoid them and try to make their way back to the conference centre. This involves fording a river and making use of a chatbot engineered to snare paedophiles.
Vikander's character briefly joins them but is impelled to return to the giant brain – it's the size of a Turner Prize-winning car (pictured above) – that has captivated her like a messiah. Each to their own.
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