The leaders of the G7 nations get lost in the woods while attempting to draft their provisional statement in Rumours. The leaders of the G7 nations convene at a rural German bogland estate to draft their annual statement to the world. Attending the summit are German Chancellor Hilda Ortmann (Cate Blanchett), Canadian Prime Minister Maxime Laplace (Roy Dupuis), British Prime Minster Cardosa Dewindt (Nikki Amuka-Bird), US President Edison Wolcott (Charles Dance), Japanese Prime Minister Tatsuro Iwasaki (Takehiro Kira), French President Sylvain Broulez (Denis Ménochet), and Italian Prime Minster Antonio Lamorte (Rolando Ravello).
While struggling to draft their statement under an isolated gazebo, the G7 leaders soon begin to realize that the estate has suddenly been abandoned and that the mummified bog bodies have started to reanimate. The situation gets weirder when Maxime finds his former lover Celestine Sproul (Alicia Vikander), President of the European Commission, worshiping a giant mummified brain and inexplicable speaking in Swedish. The G7 leaders band together to try to escape the estate and finish their provisional statement.
Rumours Synopsis
Rumours is the latest film from director Guy Maddin (My Winnipeg, Keyhole) and co-directors Evan Johnson (The Forbidden Room) and Galen Johnson (The Green Fog). The film features an all-star cast as the G7 leaders, including Cate Blanchett (Tár) as German Chancellor Hilda, Roy Dupuis (The Barbarian Invasions) as Canadian Prime Minster Maxime, and Charles Dances (Game of Thrones) as the British-accented American President Edison. The G7 Summit is disrupted by an apocalyptic event and the leaders find themselves lost in the woods as reanimated bog people come after them.
My Thoughts on Rumours
With his career approaching the four-decade mark, Guy Maddin has been spending much of the last decade progressively passing the reins to his proteges Evan and Galen Johnson, who have shared director credits with Maddin on every film since 2015’s The Forbidden Room. Rumours one of the more accessible films from Guy Maddin with Ari Aster (Midsommar, Beau is Afraid) on board as executive producer. Rumours forgo the retro cinema aesthetic Guy Maddin is known for and instead comes off as a surreal mix of comedy, apocalyptic horror, and soap opera.
Standing out among the more well-known names in the cast of Rumours is French-Canadian actor Roy Dupuis, who plays Prime Minister Maxime Laplace as a suave and womanizing satire of Justin Trudeau. However, it’s Cate Blanchett’s performance as Hilda Ortmann that holds Rumours together, with her ability to react to the film’s weird events with a straight face. Speaking of weird, it is an interesting bit of stunt casting to feature Alicia Vikander as Celestine Sproul, who speaks entirely in Vikander’s native Swedish and worships a giant brain, which is likely the more memorable visual from the film. Rumours also features what’s essentially an extended cameo by Zlatko Buric (Triangle of Sadness) as Jonas Glob, president of the European Council.
While Rumours is indeed a much more accessible film by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson, it is still an incredibly weird film. There ultimately isn’t much of a story to the film, other than the loose narrative about coming up with a provisional statement. However, the film is still an interesting satirization of the whole concept of the G7 and Rumours is at least worth checking out.
