Rumours is a flawed but sporadically amusing depiction of a G7 apocalypse

For decades, director Guy Maddin has specialized in a unique blend of low-budget, deeply personal, and super-Canadian cinema that's produced classics like My Winnipeg. With 2024's Rumours, he and co-directors Evan and Galen Johnson have moved up a bit in scope. Maddin surely couldn't have imagined when he was scraping together funds for Tales from the Gimli Hospital that he'd one day get to direct an actor of Cate Blanchett's stature! Rest assured devotees of Maddin’s filmography, a larger budget has not stifled his proclivity for the bizarre.

Rumours concern the members of a G7 summit meeting in Germany. The men and women meeting up here include Germany Chancellor Hilda Ortmann (Cate Blanchett), U.S. President Edison Wolcott (Charles Dance), Canadian Prime Minister Maxime Laplace (Roy Dupuis), and United Kingdom Prime Minister Cardosa Dewindt (Nikki Amuka-Bird), among others. As these seven souls sit down at a gazebo, they dedicate themselves to penning an important statement on some issue plaguing the world. Naturally, all any of these political figures can think of are generic PR phrases rather than concrete solutions.

As night falls, the seven world leaders find themselves inexplicably alone. All their helpers, aides, lurking paparazzi photographers…they’re all missing. Not only has the moon come out, but so too has some strange apocalyptic event emerged. Said event involves mummified corpses roaming the Earth and leaves the G7 summit participants stranded. Now they’ve all got to survive together and figure out a plan for enduring the apocalypse. The chief joke in the screenplay by Maddin and the two Johnsons is that these politicians keep responding to this issue like it’s a conventional global crisis happening millions of miles away from their luscious homes.  Axioms meant for social media posts about Middle Eastern turmoil won’t suffice here in the end times.

Rumours is a pleasantly weird creation tinged with some fleeting social commentary on the priorities of the powerful. Gags like Wolcott eating dinner with an American flag bib or French President Sylvain Broulez (Denis Ménochet) constantly emphasizing what great speech ideas he had before his papers blew away are humorous enough at the moment. Still, they also work to reinforce the self-involved nature of people supposedly tasked with helping millions. Even before their German surroundings began to look more and more like backdrops from The Road, these world leaders were hopelessly stuck inside their own brains. Except for Italian Prime Minister Antonio Lamorte (Rolando Ravello). He and his willingness to share deli meat from his pockets is an amusing selfless contrast to everyone else.

Unfortunately, a bit too much of Rumours falls under the category of amusing rather than memorably hilarious. This is true even though a gigantic brain (beautifully realized through practical effects) lurks in the woods. It even remains true through terrific humorous beats like the resolution of Laplace’s “thoughtful” conversation with the undead. These high points can’t, unfortunately, mask a movie that feels a bit too much on autopilot. Rather than devolving into absurdist mayhem, the story eventually peters out. Save for welcoming varying bright colors draped over different scenes, even the directing and cinematography are rudimentary.

Part of the issue is just that there’s no evolution to the social commentary, characters, or tone of Rumours. Whereas My Winnipeg was a truly unpredictable (especially visually) delve into the past, Rumours operates in a staccato fashion. Amusing gags undoubtedly grow here. However, there’s also not much variation in humorously depicting politicians maintaining a buttoned-up demeanor during the end times. Enough goes right to make one wish Maddin and company had taken this absurdist comedy further.

If nothing else, an amiable but ultimately not too memorable project like Rumours is a chance to appreciate talented actors diving in head-first into the waters of ludicrous cinema. Cate Blanchett's the biggest name on the poster, but the actor I walked away most intrigued by was Denis Ménochet. Just in terms of his Rumours work, he’s exceptional. His portrayal of a bone-headed guy convinced every word out of his mouth is poetry lacks any self-consciousness. However, such a buffoonish figure is especially impressive in the context of Ménochet's career. After all, his last major role was anchoring the bleak and grossly underrated 2023 film The Beasts. From his understated work there to his quietly outlandish personality in Rumours, this guy's got incredible range. If there's a Denis Ménochet fan club out there, count me in as a member.

Not everyone here gets to shine like Ménochet, unfortunately, Part of the problem with Rumours is this actor-centric exercise leaves several key performers with no super-engaging personalities to inhabit. Side characters like Japan's Prime Minister Tatsuro Iwasaki (Takehiro Hira) have little to no depth to speak of. Stifled and sometimes derivative characterizations in the screenplay keep the comedy from hitting its fullest potential. The tight claustrophobia of Rumours should let the few members of the ensemble cast run wild with oversized personalities. Instead, even Alicia Vikander as a Swedish-speaking devotee to that gigantic brain feels a tad undercooked.

Never reaching its full potential, Rumours still has admirable ambition to spare. The three directors and cinematographer Stefan Ciupek especially excel in making a beautiful-looking Armageddon chock full of purple, dark orange, and red hues. The on-screen imagery evokes Color Out of Space (complimentary) in conveying an apocalyptic aura with beautifully vivid colors. Who knew the end of humanity could look so pretty? Such striking visual choices are impressively rendered, ditto the finest dark gags and performances. Rumours frustratingly fail to coalesce into something truly special, but it’s not without its commendable qualities. If nothing else, expect out-of-context quotes and screengrabs from Rumours to litter certain people’s social media feeds in a few months. Such is the destiny of oddball indie comedies like this one.