Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Cate Blanchett & Guy Maddin on RUMOURS, bog monsters & a giant brain

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

The ‘Rumours’ are true... screen superstar Cate Blanchett and director Guy Maddin are joining Simon this week to give us the gossip on their surreal new satire—once they’ve finished fangirling over the music of Sparks, that is. Following decades of avant garde work that’s made him one of Canada’s most celebrated filmmakers, ‘Rumours’ is the biggest movie to date from the Winnipeg weirdo—its star-studded cast featuring Charles Dance and Alicia Vikander alongside Blanchett. Set at a G7 summit called to address an ‘unnamed-crisis’, it follows the hapless world leaders as they are beleaguered by bronze-age bog bodies come to life in some sort of apocalypse situation. There’s also a giant brain. It’s as odd as it sounds. Mark reviews this bizarre object of a film, along with ‘Merchant Ivory’, a documentary deep dive on the filmmakers responsible for all those most quintessentially British of period dramas from ‘Room With A View’ to ‘The Remains of the Day’—and ‘Nightbitch’, Marielle Heller’s dark comedy where Amy Adams plays a new mother at her wits end who transforms into a dog. The Christmas Spectacular is almost upon us! Mark and Simon will be live onstage at London’s Prince Edward theatre this Sunday 8th December. We’re all sold out now, and you can find the event info here: https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): Merchant Ivory Review: 06:09 Cate Blanchett and Guy Maddin Interview: 25:53 Rumours Review: 40:18 Nightbitch Review: 56:11 You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well now, this show is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Ever left yourself unmuted on Zoom at the worst possible time? I know that Mark has. Remember? We agreed that we would never speak of that again. Everything we do online flows through services, internet and mobile service providers, so it can all be sent to advertisers who hoover up your info. With a VPN, you can keep yourself to yourself, as I suggest everyone does. With ExpressVPN, you can hide your IP address, use it across devices and on the go. And by the way it was rated number one by CNET and The Verge. iPlayer, Netflix, Disney or Amazon, they're really hard to get when the cruise moors on

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It says Christmasy Show intro here. That was just like a bit of tinsel at the end of some throbbing bass. That was the very definition of perfunctory. Cheapskate. That's like when people do carol singing, they stand outside your door and they go, oh, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. Yeah, go on, do the whole song. Give us 10p. No, I want the full love actually with the Welsh policeman doing the baritone line. We had two kids in November, this is a few years ago, knock on the door, like November the 20th, and you open the door and they went, we wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish, I have to say they didn't get any cash out of us.

Excuse me. If you're going to do it, it has to be December. I haven't had any for a while. Maybe that's because the last. Do you get any carols singers? I mean, in, well, yes, there are carol singers around, but it's quite a small village. So basically, they could stand just on the front and sing and you can all hear. It's not that you have to project very far. Anyway, you're very welcome to the show. Mark is going to be entertaining and informative

and insightful by reviewing these films. It's a really interesting week. We have Night Bitch, which is a fabulous movie by Mariel Heller. We have Merchant Ivory, which is a documentary about, guess what, Merchant Ivory. And we have Rumours with our very special guests, who I'm very jealous that I didn't get to do the interview, who are? Toby Eastman Kate Blanchett and Guy Madden. Alistair Duggan Guy Madden. Toby Eastman Did I manage to get sparks in the conversation?

Yes, I did. Absolutely. Because we were both chastising ourselves for not mentioning Sparks the last time Kate was on. Guy Madden and Kate Blanchett are both Sparks fans, so therefore that's our way in to that conversation. In our bonus section, our premium section for the Vanguard Easter, what are you doing there? Yeah, two new movies, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, which is a new movie by Rangan Nioni, and Unstoppable, which is a sports biopic, and it is the 40th anniversary of Gremlins. TV Movie of the Week is going to be there as well. Watchlist and notlist, that kind of thing. Questions and smestions, and you can get it all via Apple Podcasts or head to extratakes.com

if you don't have a fruit-related device.. Seven day free trial, which is a lovely thing. And if you are already a Vanguardista as always and as ever, we salute you. Craig on an email here, Dear making a list and checking it twice. Several years ago, I began keeping a list of all of Mark's movies of the week, the recommendations on an occasionally mentioned website, Letterboxd. I must have had far too much free time back then because I spent hours going back through older episodes to get as comprehensive a list as possible. The list now covers nearly 20 years of Mark's recommendations and almost 900 movies. It's been a fantastic resource whenever I'm stuck over what to watch. Recently Letterboxd added a new feature where it provides some top stats on any list that you make,

which means we can now say with more certainty than ever what the key ingredients are for a movie to be Mark's movie of the week. So you might think Mark that this is some kind of artistic judgment, but actually there's an algorithm and here it is explained. Firstly, actors. If your film stars either Ray Fiennes or Timothy Spall, it seems there's a good chance Mark will like it. They have both starred in a movie of the week 13 times more than anyone else. Other actors, Mark and Joyce include Willem Dafoe, Ralph Ineson, 12 films each, Donald Gleeson, Matt Damon, Woody Harrelson, and of course Toby Jones, all 11 films each. Tilda Swinton and Helena Bonham Carter are the top actresses with 10 films each. When it comes to directors, there are few things Mark likes more

than a Ben Wheatley film, as seven of his movies have been Movie of the Week. Carol Morley and Andrea Arnold are the most successful female directors in Mark's eyes, each making four appearances. As far as genre goes, what I found most surprising, given Mark's self-proclaimed and well-known tin ear for comedy, is that more comedies have been Movie of the Week than horror movies. 165 comedies have met with Mark's approval, just 98 horror films. Looking at the content and themes of Mark's favorite movies, anyone hoping to write a future movie of the week should focus on writing either a, quote, moving relationship story, 181 films, or a powerful story of heartbreak and suffering. Great. 122 films. They are the most common. So if

Ralph or Timothy hear this and would like to star in a dramatic two-hander about a moving relationship that experiences truly powerful moments of heartbreak and suffering, then I think I know at least one critic who'd love it, especially if we can get Ben Wheatley to direct. Well, Willem Dafoe and Ralph Ineson both turn up in the new Nosferatu film, so the chances are very high, I would think. And there is a couple of comedic lines in there that Mark may go for that, but that's to be discussed. Is that for next week?

Yeah, no, Nosferatu is January 1st. I feel like I've been reduced to the very essence. Yes. Basically, if you boil him up in a saucepan, that's what's left. A Ben Wheatley misery fest starring Ralph Fiennes. Yep, there you go, movie of the week. But it also is a misery fest that has to be funny. Yes, with jokes. Yeah, so we're laughing at everybody's misery. Anyway, let's see how we get on with our first

movie to see if this might be movie of the week. What's up first on your list? Merchant Ivory, which is a documentary about the filmmaking partnership behind Room of the View, Howard's End, Remains of the Day, James Ivory and Ismail Merchant. So as a creative team with Rithpada Javvala, they became seen as the quintessentially British period movie makers, what Alan Parker famously called the Laura Ashley School of Filmmaking. It's weird because he said this, he said it in a cartoon, and then it was brought up time and time again, whether or not he regretted saying it. But here's the thing, as the documentary points out, James Ivory is American, Ismael Merchant was Indian, Giavallo was born in Germany,

moved to the UK, then to New Delhi, then to New York. So, hardly a quintessentially British team. Also, as the documentary points out, long before Room with a View made them the quintessentially British purveyors of, you know, what he called the Laura Ashley period dramas. Merchant Ivory had made films like Shakespeare, Walla the Guru, Bombay Talkie, other set in India, films like The Europeans, Bostonians in the US. So the whole idea of the sort of quintessential British thing is a misnomer. So what you get is a very thorough account of the story of the making of the films, but also the very personal story of Merchant and Ivory, who were partners in life as well as in work. And I think I didn't know that until fairly recently. I think when James Ivory did the script for Call Me By Your Name, I think that was probably,

it had just never occurred to me before. So the documentary, I mean, maybe just because I'm obtuse, but so the documentary speaks to those who knew with them, those who worked with them, we learn of their relationship. It's sort of described as kind of passionately dysfunctional and clearly utterly bonding. The stories of how the movies get made are fascinating. Hugh Grant in there talking about landing the role of Morris, which is a sort of key film. And he got it because Julian Sands, who had been sort of made a star by Room with a View, was meant to be doing it.

And then went off to Hollywood, just suddenly at the very, very last minute, went off to Hollywood to be famous there. And so Hugh Grant stepped in. Emma Thompson, brilliant on why things like Howard's end and remains of the day are as good as they are. Helena Bonham Carter talking about her annoyance initially at being cast as the ingenue and then blossoming into something altogether more powerful. We also see the interviewer basically having a fairly rough time at the hands of Vanessa Redgrave, whose voice you will hear in this clip. I mean, first of all, there's Jim and Ismael.

It was very unlikely that meeting of minds and bodies and love, that was a love story at first. These are two of the most laid back, pleasant, civilized, literate filmmakers I've ever, and their work reflects that. The two together are formidable. One of the most particular things about James is his meticulous, is male, to me, represented the finest of Indian intelligentsia. Oh, those were the days. Have you come to forge a bridge between East and West?

No. I really can't think of any other director or producer who's made such a variety of films. I mean, basically they made the films they wanted to make. All of which is kind of, you know, very, it's all marvelous, it's all fabulous, it's all great. Of course, what actually happens during the course of the documentary is we hear it wasn't all marvelous, it wasn't all fabulous, it wasn't all great. Vanessa Redgrave gets off her bike when the interviewer starts talking

about the filmmakers as a family. She said, I'm not doing all this family stuff. That's not what it was. We also, some of the best stories are about how Ismael Merchant, as a producer, was a brilliant producer and, as many people say, basically close to a con man. We hear just how many of the films were on shoestring budgets, how many of them came close to collapse umpteen times. Suddenly the caterers hadn't been paid or somebody had been doing things on a wing and a prayer. There's loads and loads of people in the documentary saying, I just thought I can't possibly work with him again, but then he'd ring me up and he could charm the birds out of the trees. He had that kind of thing that film producers has have

to have, which is complete ruthless dedication to getting the film made at all costs. And if that involves saying a bunch of things that aren't true at the moment that you say them, well, hey, because you know, the film's got made. I thought it was a really interesting documentary. I came out of it with a hugely enhanced knowledge of films got made. I thought it was a really interesting documentary. I came out of it with a hugely enhanced knowledge of what they did. I mean, I confess, I was probably one of those people who during that period when they were thought of as a quintessentially British thing, I was probably in the Alan Parker camp, honestly. I always loved Howard Zenn Remains of the Day, but I didn't really know the full story. And I absolutely

didn't know the story of the interpersonal relationships, which are really well told, really sort of fascinatingly done and told in a way that you think you're actually getting close to the heart of why this magic between these two very, very different people worked, both personally and professionally. And clearly in both areas, it was a very, very sparky relationship. And we hear about a lot of shouting and a lot of, in-fighting. But at the end of the day, somehow, and I said on a wing and a prayer, and often without the money, the films got made. And I never ever found myself looking at a merchant ivory movie thinking that looks cheap. Nothing they did look cheap, ever. Did it make you want to go and watch a couple of merchant ivory films?

It did. It really did. And which one would you have watched first? Remains of the Day. I just think, I mean I loved Remains of the Day when it came out and I'd love to go back to that straight away. And Morris, which I haven't seen Morris in ages, I haven't seen Morris in ages and watching clips of it, I've forgotten just how powerful it looks. So yes, it did. I defy anyone to watch this doc and not then want to go back and revisit the Merchant Ivory Brack catalogue. Will Barron And is it just for Merchant Ivory fans or do you think it will have a wider base than that?

Well, here's the thing. I imagine that anyone who's interested in cinema has seen a Merchant Ivory film. What this will tell you is that whatever it is that you've seen, their palette is much wider than that, but also just as a personal story, as a personal story of two people who were passionately involved, both personally and professionally, and who had, you know, they talk about this, relationships that are chalk and cheese and somehow create something brilliant because of the differences between those people. I mean, I thought it was really genuinely fascinating as a personal insight work as much as it was about the film industry.

And I never thought, I never thought for one minute that Merchant Ivory Films were done on a shoestring budget. But literally you hear stories about the caterers not being paid and everyone refusing to work because they're not eating. Correspondence at KerbenOMea.com, once you've seen it, let us know what you think. The box office top 10 this week, before we get there actually, on the subject of Your Monster. Yes. Dave Perry says, I saw it as a mystery screening at my local light cinema, so I didn't even

know the title until it came up on the screen. And when it did, I never heard of it. I loved its unusual quirkiness and would definitely recommend. I went with my eldest son who hates both musicals and romcoms and he walked out after 20 minutes. So I guess it's not for everyone. Wow. Okay. But I've told my youngest son to look out for it because I know he'd love it too.

Okay. Yeah. So if you hate musicals and romcoms, will you like your monster? Probably not. I would, Well, I, you know, I would suggest that if, if they hadn't walked out but stuck with it, I think it would have won them over. Where was the last film you walked out of?

To memory, the last thing I walked out of was Bad Boy Bubby because they were being cruel to a cat in real life. That's in a previous century. I was going to say you can't do that now, can you? No, no, no. Number 10, small things like these. Killian Murphy, fabulous. It's done really well and it's done really, really well in independent cinemas. I know many independent cinema managers who have really sort of rejoiced at how well that

film has done, which is great news. And also from last week, consider it a Christmas movie. It's a Dickensian Christmas movie. Number nine is the Polar Express, the 20th anniversary 4K restoration. Can I be honest? I never liked the Polar Express and I never got this. I always thought that the mocap stuff looked weird and I don't get why the Polar Express is the absolute perennial Christmas classic that it is. I have never

liked it. You had the original. Well, I did. I watched it a couple of times. The book is fantastic. I read the book to Les Enfants Terribles, whether they wanted it or not. Just say, right, it's Christmas. Put that away. You're going to read this. It's Christmas. Look, it's got nice pictures. The nice pictures then, it was a very faithful adaptation. They obviously extended somewhat because you can read the whole book in 10 minutes. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, so that's number nine. Heretic Is It Eight, still hanging on in there.

I'm really pleased it's done as well as it has. I think it's tickled people's imaginations. A new entry at seven, All We Imagine as Light. Very fine film from Parag Padya, three women working in the same hospital in Mumbai. I would say this is in the same humanist, we keep talking about what we mean by humanist filmmaking. You would have Mike Lee here, you'd have Sajit Ray in India. I think it's in that area. This was the first film from India to compete in the main Cannes competition in decades and won the Grand Prix. So yes, very fine film. So, okay, so as you mentioned it, a humanist film being? I think a humanist film being a film that understands the human condition and is sympathetic

to it. That is what I think of as a humanist film. Because humanist out in the rest of the world is sort of agnostic, it's like a rationalist. Yes, your definition is probably better than mine. But no, in filmmaking, hey, in filmmaking it's a bit different. Red One at number six, is that a humanist film? It's clearly a film made by an artificial intelligence, and it has not a spark of magic nor life in it, and a plague upon it. Number five is Conclave, a new entry. Chris in Canterbury. Dear doctors, as a regular God botherer and cinema goer, I have recently

discovered a new way to assess the quality of the sermons I hear. I name it the Fiennes test, as in F-I-E-N-E-S. It is a binary pass or fail measurement and consists of just one question. Is this sermon as good as the homily delivered by Cardinal Ray Fiennes near the start of Conclave? I hope clergy corner won't be too upset when I say it is quite a high bar to cross. A very high bar to cross. Very high bar. I mean, I would say I have probably never heard a sermon as good as that. So the chances are it's going to fail because the speech that Chris in Canterbury is referring

to is like the heart of the movie and is a fantastic bit of Robert Harris inspired dialogue. Andy Stilp disagrees. Occasionally, cinema presents a title that makes me recall Will Ferrell's character in Zoolander yelling, am I taking crazy pills? And Conclave is one of them. I think it's a tire fire of a movie and I'm the only one. The sensation deepens when someone agrees with my points, for example, solve your dramatic problems with characters, not bombs and copy machines, only to say, yeah, but I still loved it. This experience has deepened my respect for Mark. I'm not accustomed to holding such a singular negative opinion about a title and it's driving me batty. But as a critic,

Mark has had to stand alone like this very often. So Mark, what do I do? Conclave isn't going away. Is it my job to toil and research and analyze until I can see it through everyone else's eyes? If so, why do I have to do that work? Conversely, I think you're making life very difficult for yourself, Andy. Conversely, I'm not ranting about the flaws I see because it's not my job to be a joy killer. I feel stuck and I'm preemptively bracing a whole new level of crazy when Oscar nominations come out except for Rafe Fein's Dude Was Nails. So I'm slightly confused. So if you think Rafe Fein's performance was good, which I imagine Dude Was Nails, is that what that means? I have no idea what that means. Dude

was Nails. I'm interpreting that as a good thing. It might not be because youth slang nowadays is so complicated. I will answer the question, well, one of our top researchers, Googles was nails and says whether it's good or bad. I'll answer the email with this. Yes. No, you don't need to do any further research. You've seen the film, you didn't like it, it didn't work for you, and there are lots of things that you think are wrong with it, and that's absolutely fine. That will be an interesting conversation when somebody says, oh, I saw it, it was marvelous. Everyone says, yeah, it was marvelous. Everyone says it was

marvelous. Then you go, well, actually, one of my best, well, my best friend's Nigel Floyd, it really doesn't like the Exorcist. he will explain to me why his reason for not liking the exorcist, which is a perfectly good reason, is this. She's tied to the bed. What's scary? She can't do anything. She can't run after you. And I'm like, I don't even know where to begin with that argument. Also, we've all had that moment when somebody has, it's like we were talking recently about a film in which it turns out, oh, I know what it was, it was Indiana Jones, okay? Turns out that if Indiana Jones had done absolutely nothing, the end result would have been the same. So, you know, it's like, yeah, the Nazis

would have opened the Ark of the Covenant and all their faces would have melted off the end. So, you know, and you go, okay, fine. Well, yeah, that that doesn't make any sense at all. But doesn't mean that other people can't enjoy the film. No, your opinion is your opinion. Stick with it. Even if you're wrong, Andy. Paddington in Peru is at number four. I think it's the weakest of all the Paddington films. But I think if this is your weakest film, the series is doing fine. Gladiator 2 at three. Sharks, space monkeys, Paul Meskell, the dove from above and what are the scores? George Dawes. Someone was circulating a

photograph of a cinema that was showing Paddington and Gladiator and it said Paddington 3, Gladiator 2 and the caption was a good home win for the small fella. Somebody in relation to, this may come up later on in the show, but I'm going to preempt it, in relation to the conversation about The Pope Must Die, which we were talking about last week, which I said that in America was released as The Pope Must Die it. He said he saw it on a marquee of a cinema with the best ever double bill with the cinema announcing the Pope must die in bed with Madonna. Wow, now there's a...

That's very good. Okay, film, double bill film juxtapositions. Is there anything that can beat the Pope's going to die in bed with Madonna? Okay, Wicked is down to number two. Love it, love it, love it, love it, love it. And here's the funny thing. Child two sent a message saying, I hate myself, but I loved Wicked. So that's it across the board.

And Child two has no time for Paddington in any shape or form, but loves Wicked. So that's it. I think it's scorched earth policy. Moana 2 is at number one. So some thoughts here. Popsicle Sponge on our YT channel. We took our four-year-old son to see Moana 2 this morning. It might not hit the same high note as the first outing, but it was still a really fun experience. Some refrains from the first movie soundtrack are alluded to in the film's music, but without Lin-Manuel Miranda, it really does feel like it needed whatever magic Lin was bringing

back in his Hamilton Moana Encanto Mary Poppins Returns era. Walking out, I did think, oh dear, the music wasn't as good, but it was funnier. The slapstick comedy of Hey Hey the Chicken had all three of us and most of the audience all laughing together. It felt like a really special day today and Isaac has gone to sleep peacefully after having a great day out. Now we can't wait for Sonic 3 and whenever the next Paw Patrol film comes out. Nicole Morris says the original story of Moana took over five years to write, rewrite and perfect. The story of Moana too seems less researched and relied heavily on the success of the first movie. Additionally,

John Lasseter was the executive producer for the first movie and as a Disney fan, it seems whenever he's involved, the movie is overwhelmingly amazing. Perhaps the big production films, Disney should keep those people who are truly creative rather than slapping a movie together like a teen puts images and videos together on CapCut. For your benefit, Mark, I have looked that up because that made no sense to me. And CapCut is of course the Chinese short form video editing app. Yes. We're definitely on that, aren't we? That's right.

Where of course the Chinese Communist Party nickel your data and then infilt we? That's right. Where, of course, the Chinese Communist Party, nickel your data and then infiltrate. And the real Sam Ho says, I saw it yesterday with my wife and five-year-old. It was excellent. A little baggy and maybe too many characters. The songs aren't quite as impactful, but maybe that's because they're new. The last act is really lovely and touching. We really enjoyed it. I don't understand why people dislike it. Well, they dislike it, but it's still the number one film this week.

Very good. I mean, I don't think it's as good as the first one. And I agree that the script isn't on the same level and I agree that the songs aren't on the same level. But I was also really pleasantly surprised by it. I laughed a lot. I mean, it is funny. And the Hey Hey the Chicken stuff is great because I'm a big fan of slapstick comedy and that stuff I think works really well. And when you consider what a Horlicks they could have made of it, I think it's really reassuring that they didn't. When it was first planned, it was originally just for a straight to Disney. But obviously, it's a roaring success in the cinema. I know loads of people

who have young kids who are just really, really looking forward to going to see it. And a few of them said to me, and he goes, yeah, you'll love it. You'll have a really, really good time. You might come out afterwards and think exactly those things. Yeah, Lin-Wan Miranda, and you know the thing. But it's really entertaining. And once again, it is a story of a heroine whose adventures are exciting. And yeah, the plot's a little bit confused and a little bit all over the shop. And there's some really weird stuff in there as well. But it is clearly hitting a home run with people in the run up to Christmas and good for it, its heart is in the right place. In just a moment we're going to be speaking about the movie Rumours because Guy Madden,

the co-director and Cate Blanchett, one of its stars, are going to be with us after this. Well, hello there. Simon and Mark here to tell you about Indeed. Yes, Indeed is driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search. Match with Indeed. If you need to hire, then you need Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over

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gets, like us. Why not join the more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. Listeners of this show will get a £100 sponsored job credit to get your job's more visibility at indeed.com slash KermodeMayo. That's indeed.com slash KermodeMayo. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Indeed. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Season's greetings, one and all. Christmas is one of

those times, isn't it, that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For me, Christmas is all about making your house so cosy that when you come home from work, no matter what social event is on offer, you are not going out again and you have zero problem with that. Fairy lights, blankets, yes. And therapy is kind of like that blanket that stays wrapped around you, you know even when things get more complicated than we'd like. I've benefited from therapy myself and I know a lot of other people who have as well even if they weren't sure about giving it a try at first and you know it's not just for

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all carefully handpicked, so you can explore the best of cinema streaming anytime, anywhere. So hey, Simon, you remember the substance Mubi's runaway smash hit and clear film of the year? I remember you talking about it a lot. I loved it. But this ad isn't about that. It's about another Mubi release, Queer, from Luca Guadagnino. It's adapted from the novel by William Boroughs. It has an absolutely brilliant central performance by Daniel Craig. It's winning plaudits for its honesty, humor, and frankness. And the creative team includes Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross doing the score. It's in cinemas on December 13th.

Visit Mubi.com slash queer for showtimes and tickets. Try Mubi free for 30 days at Mubi.com slash Kermode Meo. That's M-U-B-I dot com slash Kermode Meo. All one word for a whole month of great cinema for free. Okay so this week's guests are Cate Blanchett and Guy Maddin for Rumours, a surreal comedy horror set amid G7 negotiations. You'll hear my talk with them, but first a clip from the movie. Should we say a little something about the private sector? Nothing major, just some words of encouragement. And that is a clip from Rumours, a new movie from Guy Madden starring Cate Blanchett.

And I'm delighted to say that Guy has joined us and Cate has joined us, they're not together, but we are all speaking at the same time. Hopefully, Cate and Guy, you're very welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Where are you, Guy? I am in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. And Cate, you appear from the quality of the picture, you appear a lot closer. I think this is the background. I'm also in Winnipeg. No, around the corner from Gatcham. You know, I'm in London. When Kate, when you were on the show last, which was for The New Boy, Mark and I did

the interview and the one thing that we really, and it was great to talk to you and we loved the film very much, but afterwards we were both very annoyed that we hadn't mentioned the Sparks video that you had just done, the girl is crying in a latte and performed a Glastonbury and so on, and we hadn't mentioned it. And we were both furious that we love Sparks. Don't get a chance to talk about Sparks on a movie show and we'd forgotten it. However, I think we can now put that right because I think Guy Madden, you know Ron and Russell, mail, and was that your way into contacting Kate? Tell us the story here. It's just a coincidence. I think I found some other way towards flapping my arms

in front of Kate's face through Ari Aster perhaps. It's a great coincidence that we all know the wonderful Ron and Russell Mayo. They're just the sweetest guys putting out this sui generis, super catchy pop music since 1970, I think. I met them through a book reviewer named Michael Silverblatt whose band, his favorite band with Sparks. And we ended up talking about making a film together someday. And then something went wrong with our project. And then luckily they got with our project. And then luckily, they

got involved with Leos Carax and made the, you know, that visionary and they made Annette. I've never heard from Kate how she met them. Yeah, no, I've always loved their music. It's sort of full of non-ironic irony. I've loved them since I first heard them. And then I saw Edgar's, Edgar Wright's documentary, and he was going to see them at the Roundhouse because, of course, he's very close to them. I said, a drooling fan that I wanted to go. I happened to meet them at the César Awards in Paris, and I got the courage to go up and knock on

their door in advance of that concert at the Roundhouse and say, I'm a drooling fan. They said, oh, you know Edgar and you know Guy Madden. And I think by then you'd sent me an email. So it's like all of these roads led to Rome. Mason If the story doesn't sort of start with sparks, Guy introduces to rumours and how the story emerged and then getting Kate involved and the rest of the cast. Guy Rumours, I'm going to try to make it sound sexy, but it's hard to make a movie about G7 leaders sound sexy

or cool or anything. But this movie could really be about anyone. It's almost as if the G7 leaders get lost in the woods on grad night. They're just really regular people who happen to be leaders of the seven largest democracies in the world. And they're just regular people. They all speak in geopolitical jargon,

which makes them unlike teenagers on Grad night. But there's, it was just kind of a challenge that we had to strip a movie bear of everyone except seven people, have them speak this highly specialized language and see what world leaders would do when stranded. And some of our favorite genres sneaked in or they wandered through in their peregrinations, soap operas, monster movies, Some of our favorite genres sneaked in or they wandered through in their peregrinations,

soap operas, monster movies, and some other WTF thing-a-mobs. And we ended up sort of feeling good. There's a strange tone that I don't think any other movies ever had that this movie has and that confuses reviewers sometimes, I understand. I do know that even people who like the movie don't ever mention this kind of tonal miracle that I feel have been pulled off. Anyway. Kate, you're an executive producer on the show. At what stage do you get sent the script and think, yes, I've never played the Chancellor of Germany?

That's for me. I wonder why. Exactly. So tell us your reaction to the script and why you got involved, because as I said, you're executive producer. Ari Aster and I had been sort of having lockdown conversations. And we, you know, of course, started talking about favourite films and favourite directors and Guy's name came up.

We were talking about The Green Fog, and I was saying what an audacious piece of impossible cinema that was. The idea that it was made for the San Francisco Film Festival, using found footage or B grade, a lot of B grade film images to reconstruct the story of Vertigo. And then several months went by and I got an email from Ari saying, oh, actually, would you be interested in meeting Guy?

And my jaw hit the floor and I said yes. It was a bit like a sort of a strange sort of date that you'd always dreamed about having. And so I thought, what am I going to wear? But unfortunately, it was over Zoom. And yeah, I tried to make her I tried to make her come to Winnipeg. But I know I was. Yeah, it was. It was I was in an airline. It was the pandemic.

You know, when you when you're drawn, we had the chance to work with people whose work that you love. You've already said yes before you get the document. And the script is such a malleable document, it's there to be played with. It's not a work of literature. But honestly, it was so beautifully constructed, rhythmically. And you could feel the images just literally leaving off the page. So you didn't really need to change very much, although we did have a rehearsal.

So it went from there. And then, as Guy said, the tone of the piece, it is a monster movie, it's a B thriller, it's sort of a, is it a political satire? And I loved the fact that it perversely refuses to decide to be any of those things. And so I thought, well, this is gonna need, if I can help ring fence or circle the wagons

around the creative team, as they get called, you know, they're not anything I can do, which is what a producer does. I thought, well, I'm happy to take on that role. But you know. And as someone, Kate, who's been immersed in theatre and who loves theatre all the way through your life, it feels quite like a theatre piece sometimes. Is that fair?

The work is almost exclusively on the seven characters all the time. Yes, and there's a long section that's around the table when they're trying to solve the unnamed crisis, which actually, as every passing day goes on, feels more and more like Rumours is actually a documentary in a terrifying and absurd way. But I think what was interesting, and it's interesting you say theatrical, because when all of the trappings of being a leader, you know, one's entourage, one's parliament, you know, even the mobile phone, when all of these things disappear, who are these people? And the wonderful thing, I think, for me,

was that the theme of, you know, every G7 has a theme. And the theme of this particular one is regret. And so you sort of see them demasking and remasking, trying to become the leaders that they once were, knowing that it's the end of days and their time is over. So there is this weird sort of separation between a character that one wouldn't ordinarily see on film. So it was, yeah, it was at times quite theatrical, I think. And speaking of things that you don't regularly see on film, Guy, can you explain,

shall we call them the onanistic zombies? Or masturbating bog monsters, depending on... That's right. If you're okay with it, you can say that. I was trying to be slightly more demure. You can call me many things, but demure, perhaps not. Yes. And where do they fit in, Guy? These bog bodies. These snow-pleasuring backbenchers?

Well, this is a historically true thing that there are, they think they were tribal leaders from the Iron Age, that's 2000 years ago, that were for various reasons deemed unfit for office. And so they were given a fine last meal and then tied up, had their throats slit and their penises severed and hung around their throats. And then they were tossed ignominiously into a bog where, unbeknownst to anyone in the

Iron Age, I think the pH values and some other chemicals in the bog water gently preserved, uncannily preserved these bodies so well. It dissolved their bones, strangely enough. So they're very floppy zombies. That's what distinguishes them from zombies. They can't really do much. They can't, you know, become staggering towards you innocently or munch on your brains.

They can kind of just flock there. They're just as fun house mirror versions of the G7 leaders themselves. They just get to stare at each other. They don't do much more than just stare at each other and pleasure themselves. It's quite benign. Yes. Okay. You'll have to see the film if you want to understand that section of the conversation. Finally, Kate, and if there's time also to you, Guy, do you think someone might,

having seen this film and having enjoyed the film, despair more, that they might watch this film and say, what's the point of voting for these people? Because they're clearly not up to the job and maybe we should try autocracy, or what's the point of voting? I think there might be a strange relief

in realizing that you're not going mad. I mean, is there any other response but to first laugh at the absurdity, then wake up the next morning and get into action? I mean, it is the end of something. the systems we're all laboring under are not serving anybody except the top 1% or the richest people in the world. So things do have to change. But I think that there's some relief in collectively gathering in a cinema and laughing at the absurdity. I mean, laughter can be a very galvanizing, energetic force, can't it? As long as you don't hide away in it. It can feel good.

It's that shared moment. It's this sort of Sullivan's Travels all over again. And instead of trying to make a serious picture, just get some shared laughter. And I watched an interview with George Carlin recently who said he refuses to blame politicians or make fun of politicians in his routines because it's not really their fault. It's just, you know, what do you expect the system to

produce but politicians like this garbage in, garbage out? It's also, I mean we did talk a lot about Bunuel and exterminating Angel and there's a way in which sometimes in a dream, and rumours can be read like a dream, you know, a fever dream or a nightmare in some respects, that you don't try and make sense of it. And in a way, it allows you to sort of switch your brain off in the best possible way for the time you're with the movie. I think you said, Kate, it was part political satire, part Scooby-Doo. Well, quite. There we go. We should get the t-shirt printed. It is. I always thought it was an episode of Scooby-Doo, but then maybe my reference points are a little bit banal. No, no. There was talk of Scooby-Doo on set. It wasn't anything we saw on the page, but once we nudged all the actors into action, especially as a sort of a ticking clock

faded up into irrelevance and everyone had to break into running, it took on Scooby-Doo flavors. That was something we didn't expect. We knew about all the other strange stuff, but I'm glad you mentioned that it's dreamlike. It's not dreamlike in the same way as the solo work I made many years ago. That was nonstop dream or pizza nightmare or whatever.

And a lot of people just got uncomfortable and woke themselves up and checked out. But this one is dreamy in a different way and I'm glad. The movie looks far more conventional than my early radical visual experiments. It's very pretty and I'm proud of the way it looks. I want people to think of it as an object. As an object in a museum or as an object at a thrift store or something, just as an object. We have to leave it there. Guy Madden and Kate Blanchett, thank you so much for talking to us today. Thank you.

Thank you. Guy Madden speaking from his flat in Winnipeg, Kate Blanchett speaking from a luxury apartment somewhere in London. I should say with reference to the Sparks conversation, we don't get a chance to talk about Sparks apart from when Sparks were on the show with Edgar Wright. So that was a special thing. But interesting that they have Sparks in common. Yes. Sparks are the great thread. Can I just say, had I thought when you and I first started working together that we would end up in a

situation in which you were the one interviewing Guy Madden, I would have been extraordinarily surprised because I remember back in, I think it must have been probably the 90s. It was either Leeds or Birmingham, memory fails, but I ended up having a curry with Guy Madden because they were showing Archangel and Tales from the Gimli Hospital at a festival, which is basically a fantasy and horror film festival. At that point, he was being compared very widely to David Lynch, although as you said in that interview, the Benoist comparison is kind of closer. Anyway, I've always been a big fan of him, love Saddest Music in the World, was a big hit. Absolutely, absolutely loved My Winnipeg, which is this documentary about the history of Winnipeg, half of which is completely untrue. But the weird

thing is that the stuff that is true is weird and then the stuff that is untrue, including the thing about the frozen horse's heads becoming seats for people to sit on after the lake froze. Then of course, as Cate Blanchett was saying in that, the green fog, which is a kind of reconstruction of a Hitchcock film through found footage. And then I don't know whether you remember this, but I think when we were doing Kermode Mey's Home Entertainment, we reviewed Stump the Guesser, which is a short film that Guy Madden made. So anyway, this finds him once again working with Evan and Gayle Johnson, takes its title apparently from the Fleetwood Mac album, which of course was being famously

made when they were all involved in emotional divorces. So here, the band members are, as we said in that interview there, the members of the heads of the G7 drawn together for a conference under the theme of regret and then getting lost in the woods during a zombie apocalypse. I was always going to refer to that zombie apocalypse in the phrase that you used as the onanistic zombies, but Cate Blanchett decided to be slightly... I think she can get away with it in a way that we can't. As Guy Madden said, yes, but they are G7 leaders, but it's as if they're on grad night. They're not very leaderly. They've got their own personal problems.

They've got love and regret and all that sort of things. As for the zombies, they're not scary because they've got no bones, so they're very floppy. Then we have the spectacle of the floppy world leaders that were as floppy as the reborn bog people, I think the guy Madden called them funhouse mirror versions of each other, getting together to make a non-statement on a generalized crisis. And the whole thing about the statement, the statement mustn't state anything at all. And then it turns into a sort of a cross between a 50s sci-fi, you know, brain film with a zombie film by George Romero with a soap opera. And again, as you pointed out, with Scooby Doo. And everybody looks ridiculous, except for the

onanistic bog monsters. Now, the key moment in that interview for me was when the subject of Ariasta came up, because I remember sitting in the cinema with you watching Bow Is Afraid. And I remember laughing at Bow Is Afraid. And the more you didn't laugh at it, the funnier it became. And I- What a terrible film. Yes. And I'm very aware that you're probably not invested in this in rum rumors in the same way that I am. You think?

Yes. That would just be my assumption. I would say this, it is in many ways Guy Madden's most mainstream film. I mean, he said, yes, I know. I mean, he says it's more conventional in its appearance, which it is. It's got big stars. It's got a comparatively straightforward narrative. I mean, the G7 leaders are all there. All their phones stop working. They're lost in the woods and there are reanimated bog monsters. So you can at least explain it in, you know, you could do an elevator pitch on it. You've got Cate Blanchet as this kind of, you know, as the leader of the leaders.

You didn't talk about Charles Dance, who is absent. I know, I realize that Charles Dance, being the most Charles Dance, the most English he's ever been, he plays the American president. It's fantastic. And of course, the fact that Charles Dance all the way through talks like Charles Dance.

And at one point, there is a little joke about, why isn't he doing the accent? But it's really fleeting. I mean, it's so fleeting, you almost miss it. I thought he was just brilliant. Then all the other worldies, and the whole thing is that they're all having dinner together, their phones don't work. Suddenly, the zombies rise up, the onanistic zombies who are spilling their seed on the ground, we presume, in order to bring forth some kind of new age of enlightenment. Plus, there is a giant brain which is in the middle of the woods. In the end, it's kind of like – I thought it was very funny – it's like The Shining meets the Brain from Planet Auris, but set in the middle of an episode of Yes Minister,

because the joke about we have to make a statement that doesn't actually state anything that we can be held to is a very Yes Minister gag. And then you've got Alicia Vikander as this character who has become completely devoted to the brain. And then there's a really funny joke about the fact that she starts speaking this language, she's speaking a space language, she's speaking a language from the future. Oh no, it's Swedish. So I-

It was funnier the way you told it than it is in the film. Okay. So my hunch was right, that you're not a fan. Well surreal avant-garde comedy is not my thing. Okay. That is certainly true. My pompous and overblown reaction is this. There are people and organizations and countries who say that all politicians are useless, that they're all the same and that there's no point in voting. That democracy is fragile and some countries it's more fragile than others, vis-a-vis South Korea.

I actually found this film unbearably smoke. Oh, how terrible it is to live in a liberal Western democracy. Oh, it's really, really awful. And look at these terrible leaders who actually obviously only got to their position because people voted for them. So that was what, so I just thought this is pretty unbearable all the way through. But I accept, you know, but so that's a ridiculous reaction. No, it's not. But that was my reaction. But this isn't the kind of film for me. So that's where I'm stuck.

No, sure. So what I would say to that is, well firstly, what you've said is completely legitimately true. That's absolutely right. The difference is I don't think the movie is saying what you think it's saying, or not exactly what you think it's saying. I think that in the same way as, you know, one of the things everyone always said was a problem with Yes Minister was that apparently

Margaret Thatcher really loved it. Okay. And that's caused a lot of anxiety for people who love Yes Minister because they love the fact that what it demonstrates is that government is just to do with the perpetuation of government. And then Margaret Thatcher loves it because she thinks it's to do with bureaucracy, not allowing her to do what she wanted to do, blah, blah, blah. I think in the case of this, it's a comedy. It is a comedy first and foremost. It was interesting that although Cate Blanchett was quite front foot about the system isn't working and only serving the top 5%, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Guy Madden, who's never been a political filmmaker with a big P, was much more of the, no, it's a kind of, you know, it is Scooby-Doo, it is this absurdist, in the same way that Todd Haynes will take melodramas and will remake them as a Todd Haynes movie, Guy Madden is

taking the form of, you know, science fiction, B-picture, Scooby-Doo, all that sort of stuff, and remaking it as a Guy Madden thing. I do agree with you that if what you're looking for is an incisive political satire, you won't get it. Well, the ads in a minute, Mark, as you know, unless you're a Van Gogh Deastel, obviously we're going to skip that a bit. But first, let's step hand in hand into the gorgeous confines of our laughter lift. I've just seen the joke. You've only just read it. Have you not prepared this?

No, no, no, I have. I have read it. I'm just getting into a funny frame of mind. Hey, Mark, I fancied a bit of a duvet day from Greatest Hits Radio on Monday, so I called in sick and I put on my weakest voice and I said, so sorry Rick, who's the management guy, I can't come in today, I have a week off. We've got a special button for that, Mayo, he says, you come in, what a weed, he goes, because he's quite hard like that. Never heard anything like it, you have a wee cough, said Rick. Really, I said, oh thanks boss, I'll see you next time.

Hey! And the best thing about that gag was the punchline happened halfway into the gag and then we all had to wait for the rest of the exposition. I know, but it's a question of emphasising the words in the right way. Yes, okay, well then in that case I think you fudged it. After last week's joke-related animal acquisition of a racehorse, I cheered up you-know-who by buying a cow. It's slightly annoying, really, because one of her fields is one side of a vineyard and

the other field's on the other side. And I heard it through the grapevine. I heard it through the grapevine. Again, better written down. Exactly. I can only, but what can I do? I could hold these. Why don't I just hold them up?

I'm holding up. Why don't we just turn this into a television program and you can just hold up idiot boards. Yes, and speaking of idiot boards, I got stopped by the police this week, Mark. They did have a point. I was just checking the proofs of my latest bumper novel out in January. Excuse me, sir, says the policeman. Would you mind telling me why you're driving whilst reading that large book? I'm sorry, officer, I said it's a long story. Hey! Looking forward to our live show when the comedy is provided by everyone else. Things can only get better.

What are you going to review next? Night, bitch. All right, after this. Hey, Mark, I find that I've been thinking recently about merch. Merch? Yes, merchandise, especially all those goodies we have for sale online, you know, branded mugs, t-shirts, water bottles, you name it. The torch, the director's chair, the full works. I wish someone had told me about Shopify, the all-in-one commerce platform to start,

run and grow your own business. I know all about that. So Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide, whether you're selling herrings or Harrington jackets. With the Tate logo on the back, Shopify simplifies selling online and in person so you can successfully grow your business. Shopify even gets you selling across social media marketplaces like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok with industry leading tools. Get Shopify today. Sign up for a £1 per month trial period. Can't we fix

this? Shopify.co.uk slash. Curmode. All lowercase. All lowercase. I mean, what is wrong with Kermode and Mayo? It's easier to be Mayo just for once. It's easier to spell Kermode. They've gone for Shopify.co.uk slash, let's say it together, Kermode. Some things require a lot of work to grow, like plants, hair, babies, or your savings. But when you run a business, you already have enough on your plate.

Scotiabank's Right Size Savings for Business account can help you grow your savings with ease. For a limited time, open a new account and earn up to 4.65% interest for the first six months. Before you know it, your savings will grow without you even noticing. Ooh, which reminds me, I need a haircut. Conditions apply. Ends December 15th. Rate is annual, calculated daily, and will vary based on account balance. So it obviously needs to be said that we're gearing up for our live show, which we are recording on Sunday afternoon. I'm doing vocal workouts. That actually sounded like you were about to go fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa about to go fa fa fa fa fa fa fa

beans. You were going to be all Hannibal Lecter. What are you wearing by the way for the... Suit. You're going to wear a suit? A suit. What do you think I should wear? Dress like you're dressed now as a member of big country. Oh, okay. All right. That seems like a very sensible thing to do. Featured in our live show, the World Cup of the worst Christmas film ever. Now this is continuing a pace with the quarter finals, which will be done on Thursday. We're speaking on Wednesday. The semi-finals on Friday

and the final will be judged on Sunday at the Prince Edward Theatre in London. Now the only way of doing this is unfortunately is on, as the Redactor refers to it as, the new First Lady's fascist hell site, because that's the only place where you, that has a voting mechanism. So I can't take part in that and neither can you, but everyone else who is on the new First Lady's fascist hell site can take part. And this is where we are. I love the fact that we're calling Skunk Face the new First Lady.

That's great. It kind of works, doesn't it? Yeah, it's very good. So this is where we are. Ernest saves America versus Bad Santa. Santa with muscles versus Love the Coopers. The Santa Claus Three versus Home Alone Four. Kirk Cameron saves Christmas versus Christmas Carol The Musical. No, hang on. We've got

something missing there. So the third match is The Santa Claus Three versus Home Alone Four, and then four says it's Kirk Cameron Saves Christmas on its own. So that sounds as though it's on a buy, so it's going straight through. A Christmas Carol, the musical versus surviving Christmas. The Princess Switch versus unaccompanied miners. Father Christmas is back versus four Christmases. Home Alone 3 versus Christmas with the Cranks. Everything to play for apart from Cameron Saves Christmas, which is, I mean, there's some dross in there. What do you say, on a buy? What does that mean?

It means that whoever Kirk Cameron Saves Christmas was going to play has had an injury, and so you get a buy to the next round. Oh, it's a sporting term. Yeah, it's a sporting term. You know, you're nodded through, basically, because your opposition hasn't turned up. Okay, fine. Okay. So, it sounds as though it's there, or it's just a misprint and something else will appear. Also, apparently the new feature is called Simon and Marks to Mind.

Not just Marks to Mind. Our two contestants have been chosen. Jacob Osborne, who's in K29, the Grand Circle. He's boffing subject, the films of Christopher Nolan. And Selena Griffin is in E-19, that's the seat, not the London region. Also in the Grand Circle, boffin subject is the film Elf. Okay. So hang on, so one of them's boffin subject is one film, and the other one's boffin subject is an Earth. It's all of the works of Christopher Nolan. Okay.

Yes, that's right. So that seems slightly unfair, but you know, hey, I'm sure Jacob and Selena will battle it out in grand style. Now for the laughter lift, the Christmas cracker special, we've had absolutely loads. Thank you very much indeed. And the redacted sides are indeed split. You send them to the normal address correspondence at koenamer.com. But what we're after, he's asked us to emphasize his cracker jokes. So a whole like standup routine would not be appropriate. But it's just the standard cracker joke. We literally want... Like a one liner, Tim Vines style.

What's the best time to go to the dentist? 2.30. That's the sort of level of thing that we want. Or incredibly, even funnier. I mean, if not possible. If such a thing is possible. So it's our Christmas cracker, spelt with Ks. Again, that doesn't really work off the page, but still. Cracker jokes, please.

Correspondence at covenamare.com. We look forward to seeing everybody, well, 1600 of you. I think the redactor thinks that this show isn't broadcast as a podcast. I think he thinks it's sent out as an email. That would probably work, wouldn't it? It's a newsletter. Exactly. And we're going to do a live newsletter on Sunday, which you'll be able to hear.

And there'll be some bonus bits and pieces for everyone who isn't there, obviously. So there's other films to review, so what else is out? Well, Night Bitch, which as, apropos of a conversation that we were just having. On a night bitch. Bruce has done a very good version of that. Bruce Springsteen has done a very good version of Night Shift. Night Shift. So Night Bitch, which is a magical realist, maternal black comedy from Mariel Heller,

who made Can You Ever Forgive Me and Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and based on a book by Rachel Yoder, which I haven't read, but which the redactor says that he has read and liked. Have you read the book? I have not read the book. So, Amy Adams is the unnamed mother whose husband, also unnamed, is off away at work leaving her to raise their child. She was a successful artist full of pizzazz. Now she's an exhausted middle-aged wreck who cooks, cleans, cares for the child.

Child never sleeps, so she never sleeps. She feels her entire existence is shrinking down to a blob of resentful despair. Early on, we see her in a supermarket in which she encounters a former colleague who says, oh, you know, it must be great. And one of the things that the film does is it shows us the answers that she really gives and the answers that she wants to give. Here is a clip. But instead I feel like I'm just stuck inside of a prison of my own creation where I torment myself until I'm left binge eating Big Newton's at midnight to keep from crying. And I feel like societal norms and gender expectations and just plain old biology have

forced me to become this person that I don't recognize and I'm just angry all the time, like all the time. Which is delivered quite perfectly, then it cuts back to her going, yes, it's lovely. So she's on the brink of existential obliteration, she wants to scream, she doesn't feel like a person, she feels more like an animal, she feels more like a dog. And when she goes out with her friends one night, which is a rarity, an absolute rarity, she thinks she has nothing to say, and she starts to snap. And as she starts to snap, she starts to feel that she's changing, and her body seems to be changing. She's a bit like, almost like a lycanthropic transformation. She starts sprouting hair in strange places,

and her teeth seem very pointy, and she's got a very, very acute sense of smell, like really, really acute sense of smell. And so she starts roleplaying being a dog with her son. It's like a game, you know, they're crawling around on the floor barking, but is this fantasy or is it real? So as I was watching this, I was thinking of that 2000 Canadian film, Ginger Snaps, which used sort of werewolvery as a metaphor for female coming of age. And then I was thinking of Roar, the film Grave, the French film, in which cannibalism is used as a metaphor for growing pains and also for sibling rivalry. And in the same way, this uses its kind of magical, realist, animal elements to tell a very real story about motherhood. Also, like the substance, which I'm a huge fan of, it uses fantastical body horror to talk about the

central character's alienation from the world and from themselves. So when the husband, played by Scoot McNary, who thinks only of himself, says at one point to Amy Adams' character, you know, you want to fool around? She says, oh, God, no. And then she, and he, he thinks, he takes offense, you know. And of course, one of the reasons she says, she says in her internal monologue, that one of the reasons she doesn't want to fool around is she's worried that he'll be horrified by her, by her body, which has now got six new nipples because she's turning into a dog. But the reaction, I mean, so that's a kind of surrealist gag,

but the reaction is kind of very, very down to earth. And yes, there are fantasy sequences about transformation, but they're not horrifying. What's horrifying is the very real craziness of this person whose entire world has been shrunk down and people around not understanding the very real craziness and depression that the character is facing. There's a scene in which Scoot McNary's husband says he'll take over, he'll do the bath time ritual and we see Amy Adams lie down on the sofa and immediately, honey, can you get this? Then she has to do something and she sits down again, honey, can you do this? I do this all the time.

I do it on my own. There is a key quote in the film in which he says, what happened to the woman I married? She says, she died in childbirth. It's a jet black comedy and it's got right at the heart of it something which, I mean, this will be very interesting. I think that every man should see this because I think it tells you something that I think rings truthfully about what that experience can be like. And I think that women seeing it, I can only speak as a man as a man, will recognize things in it as being absolutely real about the contradictory things about what happens to you if you're suddenly in a partnership

in which basically you're not in a partnership, you are left single-handedly to do the childcare. I thought it was very funny, very dark, very adventurous. Amy Adams is terrific. I know you're a big fan of hers anyway. Scoop McNary is great. The thing about Scoop McNary's husband, he's not a bad bloke. He's just self-obsessed. He just doesn't see what's going on around him. And of course, during the course of the drama, he starts to realize more what's going on. But I think that this is, again, doing in the same way as the substance, in the same way as ginger snaps, in the same way as raw, it's doing that idea about using surreal horror tropes to tell a story which is not surreal, to tell a story which is very, very real. And it does keep doing things about how much of any of this is happening, how much of any of this is in her head. And I think Mariel Heller does a really good job of getting that, riding that edge really,

really well. So you just accept the story as it is, you accept it in that kind of magical, realist way, because it's a way of using a metaphor, an outlandish fantastical metaphor to tell a very, very, I hate this word but I'm going to say anyway, relatable story. And I'd be really interested to hear what people think if they go and see it and how much it does or doesn't strike a, you know, ring a bell. Correspondence at Kermit and Mayo.com is where you send your opinions once you've seen it. Before we're done, here's an interesting thing. Jamie says, hi, Merry production team. So it's aimed at them,

but they've passed this on. I'm getting in touch as one of a team of local volunteers that make our wonderful community, Cromarty Cinema, a thing. This weekend, we've rustled up some funding from BFI and Film Hub Scotland. Well done. We have a week long action season which is called Cromartie Kicks Ass. My daughter is one of our youth programmers and she was kind enough to record a short audio advert for our festival. Please find that attached. We'd be absolutely delighted if it could be included in this week's show. More details if anyone wants to join us in the north of Scotland. And it's chromatikinema.com slash chromatikicksass with hyphens between

chromatikicks and also kicks and ass, which is a very long way of probably if you Google chromatikicksass, it'll take you to the right place. Anyway, this is what Jamie is talking about. Hello, my name is Emily Pond, and I'm one of the two youth programmers alongside Deanna Lloyd. And today we want to let everyone know about Cromity Kicks Ass, which will be taking place every day at Cromity Cinema from this Friday until next Thursday. It celebrates the best of physical action proudly supported by BFI and Film Hub Scotland, films from around the world. Just search Chromity Kicks Ass. Thank you.

And thank you. I think she said Emily and that was, so that's very good. Emily, thank you very much. Jamie, thank you very much for forwarding it. And Chromity Kicks Ass is all you need to know and let us know what you think and then send us some reviews. Correspondence at Kermit and Mayo.com. That is the end of take one. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. This week's team, Jen, Eric, Josh, Vicki, Zachy and Heather. The production was Jim, the redactor was Simon, and if you're not already following this pod, for heaven's sake, after all these years, we will take that as a kind of personal criticism. Mark, what is your movie of the week? Gonna be some sweet sounds coming down on the night pitch. Don't forget, take two has landed already and it's alongside this fabulous podcast.

Thank you for listening.