‘Rumours’ Imagines World Leaders in Love, Lust, and Lost in the Woods. We Think It’s Fictional

The first big laugh in Rumours hits before the opening credits have even finished rolling: “The producers would like to thank the G7 leaders for their support and consultation during the making of this movie.” As political bloggers, chronic doomscrollers and any conspiracy theorist with access to the internet will tell you, the “Group of Seven” is an annual summit in which selected world-power presidents and prime ministers discuss global issues and cross-governmental solutions. The national leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and Italy have been longstanding participants; Canada was jumped into the gang in 1977. (Russia had been involved as part of the “Group of Eight” for several years before being expelled in 2014. Long story.)

That the various heads of state would be so generous, and take time from their schedules to add verisimilitude to cult-cinema icon Guy Maddin’s latest fever dream — which imagines a G7 summit devolving into survivalist chaos — is so beautifully ludicrous that resisting the fit of giggles that accompanies this note of gratitude is futile. Then again, this often brilliant, totally batshit comedy does paint a picture of high-level politicians as nothing but human beings who hold grudges, air petty grievances, teeter on the precipice of incompetence, give in to the most minor distractions and obsess over their legacies. So maybe the real G7 was directly involved in the making of this motion picture. Who’s to say otherwise?

Co-directed by the Canadian iconoclast with his collaborators Evan and Galen Johnson (the former of whom wrote the script), Rumours quickly introduces its international septet in broad, character-tic-heavy sketches. The de facto leader is Germany’s Hilda Orlmann (Cate Blanchett), an Angela Merkel avatar by any other name, who’s country is hosting this year’s meeting. France’s president Sylvain Broulez (Inglourious Basterds‘ Denis Ménochet) is sweaty, twitchy hulk of a man who’s currently writing “a kind of psychogeography of graveyards” in his spare time; he’s particularly excited to see the recently excavated, thousand-year-old corpses that Orlmann is showing off to her peers. The British Prime Minister Cardosa Dewindt (Nikki Amuka-Bird) is simply trying to avoid Canada’s hunky, manbun-sporting Maxime Laplace (Roy Dupuis), who’s handsomely sulking over their past love affair. Italy’s head of state Antonio Lamorle (Rolando Ravello) is, much like Ringo Starr, just happy to be there. Ditto Japan’s P.M. Tatsuro Iwasaki (Takehiro Hira). As for the U.S. commander-in-chief Edison Wolcott (Charles Dance), he’s an elderly man who seems to be losing his facilities. Any resemblance between himself and a real-life POTUS are, of course, coincidental.

These Avengers of transglobal policy-making have assembled to write a paper addressing their mutual stand on the myriad of crises affecting the world at large. They only need to figure out what exactly that stand is, and which buzzwords to include in their official statement. Orlmann suggest they all have a nice, long lunch at a gazebo located on the woodsy estate’s perimeter to write down some ideas. She is also eye-fucking Laplace every chance she gets. Unfortunately, he has had too much to drink yet again (sigh), and keeps running off to stare longingly in the distance over unrequited matters of the heart. (“You can’t solve all of the world’s problems,” Laplace is told in a gesture of sympathy. “You can’t even solve all pf Canada’s problems!”) A strong wind has also blown their papers far into the forest, forcing Broulez to chase after them; he soon returns disheveled and in a panic. Every time someone confesses some new emotional turmoil, a sappy, saxophone-heavy score plays in the background. It’s a geopolitical soap opera, with a strong emphasis on the last two words. Call it As the World Leaders Turn.

Soon, the G7 members discover that everyone back at the main house is mysteriously gone, and quicker than you can say “Paging Luis Buñuel to the front desk, please,” the group finds themself wandering the woods after dark in search of food and shelter, stuck in a fairy-tale like landscape with no existential way out. Also, there are furiously masturbating zombies — or maybe they’re just protesters, no one knows for sure — who seem to be pursuing them for reasons unknown. A giant brain appears at one point. Alicia Vikander shows up as the President of the European Commission, speaking what several folks think is some ancient tongue and turns out to just be Swedish. A chatbot designed to snare pedophiles ends up playing a huge role in their rescue, because of course it does.

For those of us who have long thrilled to Maddin’s singularly esoteric, hyperventilating style of storytelling — this is a filmmaker who seems to be perpetually slapping exclamation points on every element of his movies — Rumours will feel like a welcoming back after years of crafting cryptic oddball shorts and following his artistic muse down the narrowest of rabbit holes. (His last feature was the 2017 experimental whatsit The Green Fog, also a collaboration with the Johnson brothers, which attempted to “remake” Vertigo via found footage.) It works great until it wearily peters out before the last act, though not before you get Blanchett leaning into a Teutonic accent that makes the host of Sprockets sound tame, Dupuis proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Canadian P.M. has a great glutes workout regiment, and lines like “Their ancient seed has extinguished the flames!” (Yes, that is a reference to the self-abusing zombies.)

As a parody of political scandals, shenanigans and national figureheads trapped in a vortex of their own vices and flaws, Rumours is essentially one joke, retold eloquently and happy to relish in its own acquired-taste eccentricities. As something that seeks to confuse and delight you in equal measures, this is seven courses of absurdity, served with a side of tongue in cheek from a trio who know what they’re doing, even if you’re not always sure what that is. We can only assume they’ve done their research and made extremely good use of that aforementioned advice and consultation from the actual G7 summit participants to craft this story of world leaders in love, lust and being lost in the woods. You will never hear a drafted provisional statement on why nations must band together, in the spirit of cooperation and a stronger economic foundation for all, the same way again.