‘Rumours’ Trailer: Cate Blanchett Tries to Save the World from a Global Crisis in Political Satire

Ari Aster executive produces co-writer/directors Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson's feature.

Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson’s buzzy satirical film “Rumours” is one step closer to theaters.

Cate Blanchett, Alicia Vikander, and Charles Dance star in the ensemble political film that centers on seven leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies at the annual G7 summit, where they attempt to draft a provisional statement regarding a global crisis.

The official synopsis reads: “These so-called leaders become spectacles of incompetence, contending with increasingly surreal obstacles in the misty woods as night falls and they realize they are suddenly alone.”

Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson co-write and direct. The trio reunite after helming “The Forbidden Room” in 2015, with “Rumours” being billed as a combination of “comedy, apocalyptic horror, and swooning soap opera” per the logline. 

Roy Dupuis, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Takehiro Hira, Denis Ménochet, Rolando Ravello, and Zlatko Buric also star.

“Rumours” premiered at Cannes and will go on to screen at TIFF and NYFF. Writer/director Evan Johnson said in the press notes that real-life summits already have an “inherent cartoon-like or fictional quality.” In fact, “Rumours” actually is an expanded subplot of a different film the trio of filmmakers have in the works.

Maddin added that “Rumours” includes B-movie elements like a massive AI brain that’s the size of a Volkswagen, a fact that IndieWire critic David Ehrlich referenced in his review.

“The AI chatbot is maybe the most acutely hilarious thing that Maddin and the Johnsons have ever put on screen,” Ehrlich wrote, while adding that the feature is “dryly hilarious” and a festival favorite.

“The joke is that the most powerful elected officials on the planet are all gormless nincompoops whose only real conviction is that they deserve to be the most powerful elected officials on the planet, and ‘Rumours’ puts that conviction to the test in any number of dryly hilarious ways,” Ehrlich penned. “The film takes place at — and with stated gratitude for — the G7 forum somewhere in rural Germany, where the heads of state from seven of the world’s richest countries gather to jerk each other off. […] But literally jerking each other off would probably be more productive than the actual end purpose of the summit, which is to co-write some anodyne statement about bettering humanity or whatever. It’s the illusion of work at a presidential level, and these people take it very seriously.”

“Rumours” is produced by Liz Jarvis, Philipp Kreuzer, and Lars Knudsen, with Blanchett, Ari Aster, and Phyllis Laing executive producing. Jorg Schulze, Joe Neurauter, Tyler Campellone, Adrian Love,
Michael O’Leary, Andrew Karpen, and Kent Sanderson also executive produce.

“Rumours” premieres October 18 in theaters from Bleecker Street. Check out the trailer below. Read the IndieWire review here.