Rumours Parent Guide

World leaders attending a G7 summit in Germany are prepared for the usual horrors: bad food, uncongenial colleagues, and incensed protestors. Those fears are largely unfounded. Germany’s Chancellor, Hilda Ortmann (Cate Blanchett), treats her guests to a tour of a remote castle chosen for the event, and the group settles down to work on a joint statement.

As usual, working on the communiqué feels pointless and slow, but things soon heat up. Canadian Prime Minister Maxime Laplace (Roy Dupuis) is drinking heavily, American President Edison Wolcott (Charles Dance) keeps dozing off and muttering in his sleep, and the President of France Sylvain Broulez (Denis Menochet) has fallen into an archaeological dig and bumped into a thousand-year-old bog body.

Encountering a well-preserved corpse is as startling as it is unpleasant, but Broulez only realizes the depth of their peril when the body reaches for his throat. This isn’t the only dig site on the grounds, so there’s bound to be more than one pickled corpse around. And if this group of politicians can’t manage to agree on a public statement, what hope do they have in confronting the ancient undead?

I don’t really know how to describe this movie. That synopsis is the sensible part, and it sounds like the script could have led to an offbeat political comedy, but that’s not really where this flick goes. The politicians are remarkably non-political, so the humor comes more from their human foibles. There’s potential there, but then the zombie plot gets weird. Very weird.

There’s no easy way to say this, but this movie has scenes showing a horde of zombies ritually masturbating in the woods. Twice. With that little detail out of the way, you might be surprised to hear that there’s no profanity in the film, and that violence is limited to some off-screen death, suicide references, and a deranged scene of self-immolation. Sure, it’s not going to be airing on Nickelodeon anytime soon, but it’s not often you see an R-rated movie with no swearing.

With all the weirdness to contend with, it’s not surprising that the movie never quite finds its footing. There are moments where the strong cast manage to make the most of the surreal situation and get some laughs, but then the story heads off to…well, you know. Since Rumours is not going to be a family favorite, and the premise is unlikely to pull in the horror fans, I guess the intended audience is political science majors with dark senses of humor. And they’re already busy watching The Death of Stalin.