Guy Maddin makes films that burst with creativity, usually fueled by what feels like personal interests in projects like "Brand Upon the Brain!" and "My Winnipeg." Roger himself wrote, "If you love movies in the very sinews of your imagination, you should experience the work of Guy Maddin." So I went into his latest, the Cannes-premiering "Rumours," with the expectations set by his previous groundbreaking work.
There are glimpses of the visually inspired Maddin that Roger suggested you "experience" more than "watch," but this one feels a bit minor in his filmography to me. It's still undeniably clever, buoyed by a great cast who know what to do with this sharp satire of world politics, but it feels a bit like a lark, a movie that is content with a chuckle instead of really biting its teeth into some of its complex subject matter. To be fair, you'll have more than one chuckle—the film is consistently, cleverly entertaining, and that's all it needs to be, even if I wondered if the younger Maddin might have found a way to imbue it with more passion and creative vigor.
Writer Evan Johnson shares co-director credit with Maddin and Galen Johnson for this essentially confined tale of seven of the world's most powerful leaders at the end of the world. The seven power players at the G7 conference go to a gazebo in the woods to hash out a statement on an undefined international crisis, only to discover that the chateau they thought they were staying at has been abandoned, and that's just the start of the weirdness. There are ancient, zombie-like men who have emerged from the earth and a giant brain in the woods that I still don't fully understand. I don't think I'm supposed to. The bit, more or less, boils down to throwing incompetent leaders into a real crisis and watching how it explodes their failures of character and generally shallow manner of dealing with the world.
Maddin's cast is one of his best to date, led by Cate Blanchett as Hilda Orlmann, the Chancellor of Germany. The most charismatic of the bunch—after all, it's Cate Blanchett—Hilda knows exactly how to smile through the right soundbite for the press and takes a leadership role when the night turns deadly. Funny enough, the real leader turns out to be the Canadian Prime Minister (Maddin, always loyal to his homeland) Maxime Laplace, whose somber visage is so because he's facing a cancellable crisis back at home that will likely force him to step down.
Impossibly beautiful and intriguing, Roy Dupuis nails the role. Most of the members of the G7 get their laughs, from Italy's Antonio Lamorle (Rolando Ravello) having a seemingly inexhaustible supply of cured meats in his jacket to the world-weariness of the American President even being played by one of the most British men alive in Charles Dance. Denis Menochet is perfectly French, while Nikki Amuka-Bird and Takehiro Hira find more dignified registers as the British and Japanese delegates, respectively. Alicia Vikander appears in an extended cameo that I couldn't really explain or spoil if I wanted to.
In its unpacking of governmental incompetence against a backdrop of surreal impossibility, "Rumours" sometimes feels like Armando Iannucci meets David Lynch. That hybrid alone can be entertaining enough for large stretches. Having said that, there are times when it feels like Maddin and company are pulling back a bit from a better version of this film, one that takes itself a bit more seriously and bites harder into the hide of people who are distinctly unqualified to actually lead.
"Rumours" is ultimately about how power players obsess over worthless nonsense even as the world is falling apart. They are more interested in their statements to the press than actual change. It's something we can see in world politics every single day as thoughts and prayers stand in for action. Maddin and his collaborators have looked at this international dilemma and seen idiocy worth mocking, and they mock it well. A filmmaker that Roger admired so much has once again burst his imagination onto the big screen in what will surely be one of the highest-profile projects of his career (Cate can do that). I hope that "Rumours" is successful enough to bring new fans to the brain-bursting work that built his reputation. After all, Roger's statement is still true: Few filmmakers obviously love movies as much as Guy Maddin.
This review was filed from the Toronto International Film Festival. It opens on October 11th.
