Starring: Cate Blanchett, Charles Dance, Roy Dupuis, Denis Ménochet, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Rolando Ravello, Takehiro Hira, Zlatko Burić, and Alicia Vikander.

Written and directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson

The G7 leaders labour over a wordy and meaningless statement, and their own neuroses. German Chancellor Hilda Ortmann (Cate Blanchett) is lusting after Canadian PM Maxime Laplace (Roy Dupuis) who has his own complex relationship with Cardosa Dewindt (Nikki Amuka-Bird), the UK’s Prime Minister. Italian PM Antonio Lamorte (Rolando Ravello) is desperate to please, Japanese PM Tatsuro Iwasaki (Takehiro Hira) wants to know what’s going on and President Sylvain Broulez (Denis Ménochet) of France might just know, Meanwhile US President Edison Wolcott senses the end approaching while European Commission President Celestine Sproul (Alicia Vikander) has found a colossal brain…

This is a weird one. No, weirder than you’re expecting. One part farce, one part post-apocalyptic thriller and seven parts in search of a plot and genre, it’s full of moments you don’t see coming, but you find it surprisingly hard to look away from. The sense of creeping menace is very nicely handled, and the theatricality of the setting really concentrates that down to some espresso level intensity. The G7 are alone, in the dark, outside. Cocooned in a privilege that is transparent from their side, meaning they think the work they’re doing matters. Or at least they tell themselves that, and Amuka-Bird is especially strong in those sections. She captures the deer-in-headlights terror of a career right wing politician faced with having to do things for themselves. Blanchett pairs with her in some fun ones, balancing English upper class incompetence and terror with increasingly impatient German hyper competency.

But the breakout here is Roy Dupuis, a name that late ’90s genre fans may be very excited to see again. The male lead of the both overlooked and surprisingly great La Femme Nikita TV show (the first one), he also had a notable role in equally overlooked Philip K. Dick adaptation Screamers. Dupuis has remarkable screen presence, and he uses it here to get the joke in a way none of the rest of the cast quite do. Laplace is very concerned, very grounded, very professional and extremely emotional. He’s the rugged politician hero of a romantic thriller and Dupuis dances along the line between parody and sincerity with total focus and grace. He’s sensibly given the movie’s ending, which is also by far the best scene, as the G7 release their memo to what’s left of the world. It’s the one moment the movie closes its fist and throws a punch, showing the bloviating hypocrisy of career politicians can survive (almost) anything.

It’s a shame then that the rest of the movie is so fragmented and overblown. Dance’s US President gets one good joke about not having an American accent. Ravello and Hira are mobile scenery and Vikander is wasted on three scenes which up the stakes but resolve absolutely nothing. Worst of all Ménochet’s excellent, empathetic turn is rendered down to nothing but an info dump. The cast is eight people wide. Five of them have almost nothing to do. That’s a movie-breaking problem by itself, but it’s far from the only problem. The increasingly surreal, untidy apocalypse unfolds with janky, staccato steps. The ending feels rushed. Very few scenes hang together and worst of all the film seems inordinately pleased with having reached the conclusion that politicians are incompetent, stupid cowards.

We live in 2025. This isn’t news. And it’s certainly not fun to watch.

Verdict: In the end, Rumours never coheres. It’s got three great performances but that’s it. If you can, see it for Dupuis. He’s great and deserved a much better movie to be this good in. 4/10

Alasdair Stuart

 

Rumours is available on Blu-ray and streaming now