A wintry gloom has settled upon Depression-era Winnipeg in Guy Maddin's newest brew-ha-ha, a joyously stilted comedy wed to the visual extravagance of a dizzy 1930s musical. To dig out from beneath the snowy pall, Lady Port-Huntly (Isabella Rossellini), a bewitching beer baroness, announces a competition to determine which nation possesses the most sorrowful song. Performers from every lamentable land descend upon Port-Huntly's brewery to challenge the world with their doleful strains. Among the maudlin musicians are the American entrant, Chester Kent, a failed impresario who adores the lady brewmeister, and his brother Roderick, Serbia's official contestant, mourning the loss of his wife, who passes nearby incognito as the frail nympho Narcissa. These competitors, we quickly learn, are vying for more than the “crown of frozen tears.” Adapted by Maddin and collaborator George Toles from an original screenplay by Booker Prize–winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, this heady brew floats the bubbly sorrows of individual souls in a frothy keg of universal misery, stirred all the while by an intoxicating wit. Like many of Maddin's ingenious films, The Saddest Music in the World is gussied up in the alluring aesthetics of vintage cinema. This one seems inspired by the demented expressionism of G.W. Pabst after a few too many pints of Blue Ribbon.