The Canadian film industry was founded on documentaries. Early 20th-century Canadian “home movies” toured the nation’s vast landscapes and were used to promote topics of martial interest including immigration. While it was neat to confirm that “yes, it does get cold and snow over here,” there was no intention to sensationalize Canada’s qualities. South of the border, the US was creating heroes and building myths through films such as The Great Train Robbery. Canada still struggles today to mount its heroes on the big screen, creating a deficit in the national film identity. Although Brian Mulroney may not be the exact hero anyone asked for, Winnipeg native Matthew Rankin creates a tapestry of an icon who was definitely flawed but graced televisions during a formative period in Canada all the same.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney opens with the 1976 Conservative convention as members of the party battle it out to become the leader of the Progressive Conservatives. Each member gets his or her own Mortal Kombat-esque title card. Mulroney emerges last for his speech, driving in on a DeLorean (possessing a level of coolness that seemingly could only be comprehended in the future), and begins to ascend into the rafters. He delivers politically cookie-cutter yet nevertheless endearing lines like, “There are no great men; there are only ordinary men who rise to meet great challenges.” The irony of Mulroney professing that great men don’t exist while donning a puffy jacket, flowery scarf, and rings on all fingers speaks to the paradox of Rankin’s project.
The only way to make dry Canadian politics cinematic would be through this hallucinatory, self-deprecating, remixed mode, sifting through archival footage, both from news segments and the NFB archive. The political figures placed under the microscope in the documentary are ordinary people, artificially placed in unordinary circumstances, such as an evil floating head of Pierre Elliott Trudeau occupying his eye-searing Liberal-red lair. There was never even a real champion of “Progressive Conservative” politics, a self-contradictory moniker from the very start, leaving many to question if Canada ever really desired a definitive mythological icon to represent them.
Later, those at the Convention share that Mulroney’s speech was a blunder, which is obviously referencing the real speech and not the technicolour fever dream Rankin conjures. This moment, which plays between the lines of fiction and nonfiction, questions the implication of Rankin as a storyteller who is attempting to create an aura around someone who truly wanted to be a hero but was only an ordinary man.
Some of the most unique moments in Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney, are these very intentional political tactics of creating narratives within an election campaign. Rankin is savvy in referencing small Mulroney quirks, like a recurring joke about his in-laws and a go-to catchphrase, “The devil made me do it ” in reference to Liberal opponent John Turner’s accountability. These choices within the documentary position Mulroney as someone who is adjacent to a movie star or someone who wanted to be seen as such. He dances and sings, possessing his own quotables to boot.
Comedy is born out of Rankin constantly hitting a wall of dullness in Canadian politics but continuing to drill through the difficulties. Interspersed footage of leaders getting ridiculed on live radio feels like an incalculable enigma that shatters an impenetrable public-facing poker face. The director’s own opinion on the film’s figures is not left to the imagination, either, as he constantly creates satirical intertitles, calling political officials “curmudgeons” in the process.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney destroys any previous classification of Canadian cinema or national identity. Rankin returns to the documentary medium that began Canada’s foray into storytelling and indifference to building its heroes, creating a work that both makes fun of its subjects and plays out the nation’s insecurities and taboos. While being a largely comedic piece, the film still operates as an educational drama (ish) outlining Quebec’s separatism push that set a wider backdrop for a nation in need of a hero. So while something so niche as a documentary about Brian Mulroney will surely not hold any significance outside of Canada’s borders, Rankin outlines a multi-faceted inside joke for a country that is weird, loud, and flawed, which is certainly something to spur national pride.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney premiered at TIFF 2026 on September 15 and has an additional screening on September 19
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