What’s that quote about how no one knows what they’re doing, we’re all just pretending? You know the one. The one that resonates when you realize you’re suddenly an adult and you have no idea what you’re doing. That further resonates when you realize your parents aren’t omniscient. And even further when you realize that the people in charge of everything are literally clueless. Take that horrifying thought and imagine your G7 leaders managing another global crisis from their towers before being thrust from them and directly into another one. That’s the black comedy painted all over Rumours, a gut busting political satire from Canadian creators, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson.
Political satire will always be timely, but Rumours picks at the fresh wounds of the pandemic, climate change disasters, and the wars abroad. Maddin and co imagine our most prominent leaders as immature, petulant, windbags who spend more time sipping wine and drafting hollow statements than they do taking any real action against crises. They’re not faces of evil per se, but they’re gutless ivory tower dwellers full of so much hot air, they almost float, and they’re otherwise as unequipped as the rest of us.
The eclectic cast is clutched together by Kate Blanchette’s star power and accent proficiency, her as the sharp German Chancellor surrounded by a hopeless romantic Canadian Prime Minister (Roy Dupuis as Maxime Laplace), a barely conscious and babbling American President (Charles Dance as Edison Wolcott), a nervous bumbling English Prime Minister (Nikki Amuka-Bird as Cardosa Dewindt, and further securing herself as the queen of awkward, weird, dry comedy), the irreverent and hard to pin down President of France (Denis Ménochet as Sylvain Broulez), the vapid Italian Prime Minister (Rolando Ravello as Antonio Lamorte), and the frantic fly on the wall Prime Minister of Japan (Takehiro Hira as Tatsuro Iwasaki). They’ve assembled in a protected manor in Germany to strategize and prepare a statement for an unspecified global crisis. While the world is implied to be dealing with one thing or another, they gather over wine glasses, notepads, and the uncomfortable social situation created by the weeping Canadian PM struggling with his love life. It’s all vapid and fluffy and the “strategy” seems completely secondary to their social structure and personal matters. That is until they find themselves alone (which they notice as no one seems to be refilling their wine glasses) and surrounded by dripping zombies.
If you can imagine it, world leaders land smack in the middle of a real crisis and their notepads are insufficient protection from the fold. That’s where the Canadian creators find their comedy, not only in the social satire about hapless leaders but in seeing them clunk around in high heels with shapely haircuts trying to defend themselves from monsters. It’s as much an Iannucci political satire as it is Mars Attacks. And with the former comes the crackling dryness which works until it doesn’t. Blanchett walking gingerly in smart dress shoes and managing the crew’s emotions is what trailer clip dreams are made of, but the gag loses freshness around the midpoint, only saved by the sudden appearance of Alica Viaknder as the representative of the European Union. Surprise guests, though, unfortunately can’t keep the back half afloat but the film has earned enough good will by then to keep your attention.
Rumours is the bridge between weird cinema and overt political commentary that 2020s earth inhabitants crave- it lampoons our world leaders but creates a situation remote enough from reality to allow for brainless (non-literally…) laughs. I mean, unless you count how close the Canadian and American reps are to their Earth-1 counterparts but let’s not get into it.
Rumours hits theaters October 18, 2024.
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The Smash List 