When Armageddon envelops politicians lost in their own self-importance

MOVIE REVIEW: Rumours, starring Cate Blanchett and Charles Dance

Is it possible for a film to be both fantastic and dreadful at the same time?

Is it possible for the makers of a movie to set out to make something they don’t actually want you to see?

Is it possible that Rumours is the cleverest movie you will not see in 2025?

If Birmingham is anything to go by, following the UK release of a film in the dreariest week of the year, it is going to be next to impossible to watch it - on the big screen here, at least.

Apart from the Mockingbird Cinema, the only so-called art house movie Mecca showing it is the MAC - and, as a blizzard set in outside, me, the intrepid Pete Sherlock and Anna Smith and about 15 other people in the house bore witness to this incredible spectacle.

So, let’s set the premise. We are immediately faced with the classic photo-op for a G7 Summit - the leaders of the so-called wealthiest liberal democracies in the world gathering to develop the statement of their political lives that they hope will save the world from its "current crisis" - which remains unnamed throughout.

But, this photo-op is not accompanied by the “media soundtrack” featuring the so-called learned political journalists breathlessly telling the world just how important this meeting will be. No, there is in fact no-one audible, we also hear nothing from the politicians.

As far as the movie is concerned, we are left dangling, wondering which way it’s going to go - a comedy or a horror? The result is, well, both.

Not only that though, we learn, rather aghast, that the man was murdered, his killers cutting off his penis and wrapping it around his neck

The first words immediately let us know that these leaders are actually just humans - with all the hang-ups everyone has, the opposite of the traditional rhetoric that tries to portray our politicians as anything but.

The first weirdness? The clear impression that the British and Canadian prime ministers have had an affair. Discussing this, while they are apparently still being followed by TV cameras.

But wait, before the “working dinner” commences at this remote German schloss, there is another photo-op at an archaeological dig site where a perfect Iron Age corpse has been uncovered.

However, this is no ordinary find - apparently the chemical composition of the earth locally has been able to dissolve this man's skeleton, leaving all his soft tissue perfectly intact - is this biologically possible?

Not only that though, we learn, rather aghast, that the man was murdered, his killers cutting off his penis and wrapping it around his neck, the archaeologist casually announces, leaving the leaders mortified.

The humour begins to penetrate for them though, with the photo featuring them all brandishing shovels whilst wearing G7-monogrammed pristine wellies.

So, we reach the dinner destination, a newly-built pagoda, on a lake, right in the heart of the secluded estate.

And, all apparently goes well - the food is served, the grand cru flows.

But then cracks start to appear - focused at first on the Canadian premier - he’s racked with self confidence issues, he’s showing he’s human again, and needs a time-out with his wine, retreating to a nearby bridge to catch his mental breath.

Meanwhile, the other six summiteers are getting down to “teambuilding” business - separating into groups to start framing the statement about this nebulous global crisis - nebulous, since they wrap themselves in political jargon, never saying anything concrete.

The British and German premiers, minus their emotional Canadian counterpart, seem to go off piste immediately, discussing the fraility of the premier from Quebec - and it appears that not only is he contemplating resignation (has Justin Trudeau seen this??), but our German chancellor might have romantic inclinations for him too.

"Politician" rendered redundant

Meanwhile, the French and Japanese leaders are apparently getting on famously - until their pages are whipped away on the wind, pursued with zeal by the French president.

Not mentioned so far is that the only “stars” of this film are Cate Blanchett - who is one of countless executive producers too - as the German chancellor and the elder statesman that is Charles Dance, as an ageing president of the US (again uncanny parallels with reality).

Blanchett uses a fairly passable German accent for the host German chancellor - Dance, on the other hand, makes no attempt at an American accent, projecting great weariness about all this statement nonsense.

“No-one takes any notice of them,” he notes with an eagerly listening Italian premier - newly elected - and keen to get things “right”.

And it’s in these mundane machinations you realise this film is, in significant part, about the slaying of the “politician”, rendering their concept as redundant.

They really don’t actually have greater intellectual supremacy to command actual power and progress than us humble citizens.

Dance goes on to utter that he is at the head of the “world’s oldest democracy” which, with his clipped proper English accent, serves to knock down the US administration and render the British “mother parliament” as immediately toothless, in one fell swoop.

Our G7 leaders are in fact falling like pins, rendered lost amid the human condition, unable to articulate what we may or may not need them to do.

So far so almost realistic - but then the mud-splattered French leader staggers back to the pagoda, apparently complete with a fistful of the notes he had set off to save.

The European Council's final death knell comes when we meet a “missing” president from a previous summit, having become ruled by huge brain, sitting there in the forest

Perhaps we have suddenly entered the realm of “magical realism”, so skilfully used by the likes of Allende and Garcia Marquez, to great satirical effect.

We’ve already had a fantasy scene where the caring German chancellor has set off in pursuit of the fragile Canadian, who has already been smarting about the reminder he is the new kid (nation) that made it up to the G7, lying down in the undergrowth with our chancellor for some passion play.

But, we lurch further away from reality as the French leader recounts a horror story, talking of how there is not a single member of support staff left around, and the schloss employees have disappeared too, having locked all the doors - the leaders' dying mobile phones raise no-one to come to their aid - it does seem they have been abandoned.

And with that, we are then plunged into a tortuous journey through an apparently interminably huge woodland, where our leaders encounter the bought-back-to-life Iron Age ancestors, apparently performing an ancient ritual, that principally consists of masturbating in a circle - an intentionally crass display, seemingly telling our politicians that they trade in “wank” and nothing more.

But, don’t think the G7 as a gravy train of indulgence and ineffectiveness, is the only “august insitution” to be lampooned - the European Council buys it too.

Its final death knell comes when we meet a “missing” council president from a previous summit, having become ruled by huge brain, sitting there in the forest - to all intents and purposes a prop from a lost Woody Allen movie.

She has apparently learnt a new “tongue” under its influence, until our leaders realise she is speaking Swedish (not even a member of the G8, so of course can be ignored).

But, the brain brings us close to our final denouement, focusing on politics and politicians as having been surpassed by technology - the AI brain has taken control of them, and they didn’t even notice.

Ironically, one of the few issues addressed in this movie is the haunting spectre of technology being harnessed by the sexual predator.

An AI-constructed “vulnerable girl” starts sending messages to the phone of the Canadian leader who, by now, has almost become a cartoon hero, who will save everyone.

Bathed in a raging red light

Finally, they are back at the deserted schloss, drawn to a Wizard of Oz-like mad-hair inventor, who also happens to be a former Euro Council president, who trained the AI to send the girl’s messages to draw the Canadian in.

But, it’s all too late - our flawed and tragic hero is determined to deliver the summit statement, even if it means nicking passages from previously lauded speeches to knit in, resorting to an Eno-esque “cut-up” technique to put it together.

All of that though is academic - since, as he takes to a “royal balcony” like Caesar to deliver this non-existent wisdom, he is bathed in a raging red light.

While our politicians have been bickering over how to word a statement, global Armageddon has apparently taken place, without them even noticing.

This is a film that apparently renders everything we hold as true as being questionable at best.

Everything is merely held together with spurious tittle-tattle and decisions around elevating convenient discourses, burying human frailty, contradiction and corruption, to achieve a solid place in history. Nothing ever really gets done.

The movie-makers don't shy away from delivering a similar weary message about the art of film.

It seems this medium is also simply a way of convincing us of fable made almost flesh, as a diversion from our remorselessly grinding reality.

No wonder Rumours will sink without trace - too honest by half!