Rumours (2024) TIFF Review: An insane political satire featuring Cate Blanchett and an enormous brain

Aiming at an absurdist satire based on the lack of Machiavellism in current politics, Canadian directors’ trio, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, hilariously roast the G7 global leaders in their latest Canadian-German feature that oscillates between a semi-tragic opera and apocalyptic horror story.

Before I specify how much I laughed watching this film, let me explain the gist of the story. The leaders of the G7 nations, the world’s wealthiest liberal democracies— US, Canada, Germany, Japan, Italy, France, and the UK — find themselves in a bizarre situation and must fend for themselves using only their own (incompetent) means.

The G7 leaders are so preoccupied with crafting a makeshift provisional statement crammed full of cliches and nonsense and dealing with an unidentified problem that they fail to notice that their servers have deserted them. Only once the assistants and cameras have departed do things truly spiral out of control and all of their flaws become abundantly clear. Which is essentially what you see in the official trailer with a lost Cate Blanchett roaming aimlessly through a misty, dense forest with a glowing, giant brain on the way. And ancient bog people who explode when they masturbate.

The background score and nature-friendly yet artsy cinematography catapults this movie to one of my favourite comedies of this year!

The main host of the summit is the German Chancellor, Hilda (Cate Blanchett) whose attempted German accent in this movie, adds to the comedy of this masterpiece satire. And yes, I know she can act “German” if she wanted to- so this was clearly what was intended. Hilda channels a real-life public figure closely in attire, while frantically struggling to maintain the decorum once the chaos begins. All while looking poised and unflappable.

The rest of the leaders are even better. The charismatic, hot prime minister of Canada, Maxime Laplace (Roy Dupuis), is on the verge of a nervous breakdown due to a mind-numbingly dull “carried interest scandal” at home and a sour romantic relationship with his U.K. counterpart, Cardosa Dewindt (Nikki Amuka-Bird), who insists on completing the provisional statement rather than rekindling any kind of relationship, while they try to escape the woods.

The revered POTUS Edison Wolcott (Charles Dance) barely manages to keep his eyes open and converses with a borderline English accent. Meanwhile, Italy’s crazed, adorably caring leader Antonio Lamorte (Rolando Ravello) forgot to bring his phone. French president Sylvain Broulez (Denis Ménochet) is more interested in writing a “psychogeography of graveyards and burial customs” instead of the political statement.  Halfway through the movie, Celestine Sproul (Alicia Vikander) makes an appearance as the Secretary General of European Commission.

There are unmistakable characteristic hints of real-life figures in the movie, and if like me, you, are an avid political analyst, this movie is even more fun to watch. But the point of this movie is not it’s association to the leaders of today. The point is that, ultimately the world has evolved considerably with the leaders being led by the public, awaiting to be thrusted out of power if proven to be ineffective in meeting demands. As time progresses, most leaders would have no control whatsoever.

Somehow, the Canadian trio, managed to end the undoubtedly rolling-on-the-floor-laughing movie in a resolutely caliginous yet practical tone.

It’s a strange one, but a good one!