This film — starring Cate Blanchett — is close to the silliest I’ve seen

‘What the hell is going on?’ asks Cate Blanchett, playing the German Chancellor, asks at one point. It’s a question the audience will ask too.

The leaders of the free world in the new satirical film, Rumours.

The political satire Rumours is close to the silliest film I’ve seen. It’s two stars rather than one because while what happens is ridiculous it isn’t boring and the acting, including from Australia’s Cate Blanchett, is passable.

As I watched this purported black comedy centred on the G7 leaders, I started to imagine how it could become even sillier. The lead director, Canadian Guy Maddin, who has a reputation for being well named, does not disappoint.

Let’s start with the German Chancellor (Blanchett) sizing up the handsome Canadian Prime Minister (Roy Dupuis) and suggesting, without any nuance, “we include a little something about the private sector”.

How do you out-silly that? Easily.

You go to a giant human brain throbbing in the forest and have someone declare it a “game changer” for the world as we know it, or to the people who have been dead for 2000 years masturbating in front of a camp fire.

“What the hell is going on?’’ the German leader asks at one point. It’s a question the audience will ask too.

All of the characters speak English throughout and one of the sillinesses is Blanchett’s German-accented English. It’s far from the dual Oscar winner’s best performance.

Here’s the set-up: the G7 leaders gather at a castle in Germany to draft a statement about an undefined global crisis. The other five are the US President (Charles Dance), the British PM (Nikki Amuka-Bird), the French President (Denis Menochet), the Italian PM (Rolando Ravello) and the Japanese PM (Takehiro Hira).

Cate Blanchett. Picture: Getty

Before they sit down to work on the statement, the leaders visit a cultural exhumation site and pose with shovels for the media. Soon afterwards, the “bog bodies” in the graves come to life to masturbate, as mentioned, and … well not much else.

In quick order it becomes apparent the G7 leaders are alone in the castle, which is surrounded by forest. The staff have vanished and no help is coming. The leaders of the free world need to rescue themselves, and prove to be not particularly good at doing so. The elderly, sleepy US President thinks there’s been an apocalyptic event and humankind is finished. The Canadian PM drinks a lot of wine and obsesses about women. The French President hurts his leg and has to be pushed in a wheelbarrow.

Maddin co-directed and co-wrote this movie with Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson. He is an experimental filmmaker. His previous film, The Green Fog, also co-directed with the Johnsons, is a found footage tribute to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece Vertigo.

I think I can see what he’s trying to do in Rumours. It’s about the weaknesses of liberal democracies, which is a timely subject. Yet the punches do not land. In an extended sequence the leaders are imagined as the personification of their nations. Lines such as “Germany caught up in the dramatics. We’ve seen this before” are predictable and unfunny.

Towards the end, the German leader hands out tote bags full of “treats”. The contents include a packet of chips and a suicide pill. I will not reveal which of the two the G7 leaders decide to eat, but I suspect you can guess which one I hoped for.

Rumours (M)

104 minutes
In cinemas

★★