Rumours (2024) is directed by Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, and Guy Maddin. It stars Cate Blanchett, Roy Dupuis, Denis Menochet, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Charles Dance, Rolando Ravello, Takehiro Hira, Alicia Vikander, and Zlatko Buric. The story follows seven of the world’s most powerful leaders as they meet at a fancy German estate to draft a statement on an ongoing global crisis. As they clash over petty political nuances, they soon realize something strange is beginning to occur. Their various employees are nowhere to be found and dead bodies seem to be inexplicably rising from their graves. Together these silly politicians are forced to find a way to escape the area before it’s too late.

The various performers are well-cast (besides one notable exception) in their respective roles as less-than-serious world leaders. They effectively toe the line between believable and satirical, which is no surprise considering their combined acting experience. Each character represents one of the worst aspects of real-life politicians, to the point that even amid an apocalypse, the only thing they seem worried about is a press statement. It’s funny because these characters are meant to challenge each other politically, but only end up doing so when it comes to personal issues. In other words, their personal struggles take priority over the needs of the people. This behavior is consistently chuckle-worthy but also scary when one considers our real-life leaders acting in such a way. The problem is that the characters are so air-headed, they’re tough to enjoy. This wouldn’t matter if their behavior was funnier, but the approach to satire is too subtle and low-key to make up for what are honestly some pretty boring characters. It also doesn’t help that although the characters are unique on paper, they don’t receive any kind of satisfying arc. Essentially, the satire is effective, but the characterization is dull and doesn’t allow us to attach to anyone. To round things out in terms of my thoughts on the characters, I couldn’t for the life of me understand why Charles Dance was cast as the president of the United States. The allusions to “Sleepy” Joe Biden are clear, but why is he British? It’s never explained and broke my immersion multiple times. 

Although the film is mostly a disappointing attempt at satire, I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t contain one or two laugh-out-loud moments. Because the characters are people who only pretend to be capable, it’s a load of fun to see them thrust into a scenario where optics don’t matter for once. For example, there’s something undeniably chuckle-worthy about a character literally seeing zombies rise from the dead and saying, “I have a feeling that something apocalyptic has occurred.” Also, it’s tough not to appreciate the comic sensibilities of writers who breed a scenario where the characters have to pretend to be pedophiles in order to find help.

The film features some interesting ideas, one, in particular, relating to the idea of how much stock is appropriate to place in historical events we didn’t even experience. The film argues that it’s not as important for the everyman, but extremely important for politicians. I don’t have any responsibility to acknowledge the dark history of various cultures/nations, but politicians do. In terms of acknowledging history, politicians have a much bigger responsibility to do so. Although they are human, it’s their responsibility to hold themselves to a higher standard. Prioritizing your love life over the end of the world as one character does is the opposite of holding oneself to a higher standard. The everyman is often too serious about this kind of stuff when they can’t make a meaningful difference, but politicians aren’t serious enough when they can. 

Overall, this is a mostly forgettable political satire that never goes far enough with its jokes and often feels as if it goes for low-hanging fruit comedically. It’s not that there are fart jokes or anything that juvenile, it just focuses on some pretty standard political ideas. They’re easy to agree with, but nothing I haven’t considered on my own accord as a US voter. It’s a movie that immediately catches the viewer’s attention but never does anything with it. You wait and wait for it to kick into gear, but it never does. The start is fun, but it never improves. At the very least, it’s saved by the pitch-perfect satirical performances. I just wish the material itself was more compelling. C