Guest and Company Go Hollywood
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The mockumentaries of Christopher Guest offer the almost old-fashioned pleasure of seeing a talented acting troupe work together again and again. Like Preston Sturges’s crew of sputtering small-town irregulars in the 1930s and ’40s, Mr. Guest and company have reliably brought a lovable band of misfits to the screen for nearly two decades in comedies like “Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show,” and “A Mighty Wind.” Like the best troupe comedies of cinema, the failings and personal paradoxes that humanize each character are always visible through the parodic trappings.
That may be surprising given the shared short-form backgrounds of Mr. Guest’s actors, like Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara, stalwarts of the 1970s sketch show “SCTV.” But the signature success behind Mr. Guest’s best company performances has been to sustain comic characters, and relatively sympathetic ones at that, far beyond the length of a typical sketch.
In short, life after the punch line. Comedy’s great insecurity has always risen from the fact that the final joke is on the character, who is disposable for a gag when necessary. At their best, Mr. Guest’s films master a delicate balance between the entertainer’s edict to make the audience laugh while making them care, even if just a little, about who they’re laughing at.
“For Your Consideration,” about the cast of a self-important indie film slowly unhinged by Oscar mania, is the first Guest film that misses both that balance and the consistent laughs that might compensate. Rather than a total breakdown, the movie starts out a little out of whack, and gradually rolls its way toward what no Guest-starrer should ever be: average.
The small-budget prestige film being produced is called “Home for Purim,” which one can already imagine looping in handwriting font in a New York Times ad (no need for conjecture: There’s a scene about poster ideas). Its stars, the veteran unknowns Marilyn Hack (Catherine O’Hara) and Victor Alan Miller (Harry Shearer), play an ailing mother and doting father who welcome their daughter (Parker Posey) and her “companion” (Rachael Harris) home for the Jewish holiday. The self-serious schmaltz, under the direction of a potbellied nebbish (Mr. Guest), blends coming-home, coming-out, and ethnic pride pieties, interpreted, hilariously, in lugubrious Southern drawls.
Intrigue arrives like a stranger to a small town (as it did in the form of a Broadway producer in “Guffman” and a dog show in “Best in Show”) with the Internet rumor of Oscar consideration for the defeated-looking Marilyn, and later others. The production’s PR mouthpiece (John Michael Higgins) ineptly stirs the pot while Marilyn and the cast fret over their nonexistent reputations. Meanwhile, the producer (Jennifer Coolidge) and the financer (Ricky Gervais) suggest changes (“Can we tone down the Jewishness a bit?”) that threaten any meager integrity inherent in the production.
“For Your Consideration” is not the razor-sharp takedown of the industry one might expect. Hard-hitting satire has never been the primary aim of Mr. Guest’s comedies because they are so often affectionate toward the oddball milieus they mock. But the film does take aim at the well-established Sundanceification of independent film, and the cockeyed mawkishness of “Home for Purim” screams oblivious niche-film earnestness.
If anything, there’s a touching air of nostalgia to the journeymen played by Ms. O’Hara and Mr. Shearer, in their professionalism and barely concealed vanity. That may be partly because they are finally playing actors, but also because Ms. O’Hara has always been the bittersweet heart of the troupe, expertly slipping in the straight story behind the shenanigans. It’s a role that Mr. Shearer, a longtime collaborator with Mr. Guest, but recently more prominent in the troupe, looks set to share.
In “For Your Consideration,” their characters don’t feel as fully realized or richly inhabited as past Guest creations. Sure, they suffer telling indignities, self-inflicted and otherwise, like Marilyn’s preparations for the Oscar spotlight (details best left a surprise) and Victor’s stubborn renown as a mascot for wiener ads. But by the end, there’s no feeling of having seen a couple of people through their experiences, however silly.
Part of this may be due to the film’s departure from a strict mockumentary format. It’s a smart decision on Mr. Guest’s part to strike out afresh, but his traditional formula had its uses beyond satisfying fans. In prior films, Mr. Guest’s use of interview segments, sharpened with each comedian’s timing and presence, effectively slowed down the film in question to the personality and rhythms of that character at that moment. It was an end run around the absurdity of the goings-on.
“For Your Consideration” instead feels scattered, and the hit-and-miss becomes a little too keenly felt. The most memorable characters are the minor ones. As the co-host of an “Entertainment Tonight” clone, Fred Willard puts a neat, needling twist to his usual backslapping, accompanied by Jane Lynch, a master of the stiff, punctuating head jerk. Ms. Coolidge’s moon-unit producer is daft bliss, and Mr. Levy (who co-wrote with Mr. Guest, as usual) could play his role as Victor’s agent in his sleep.
The care put into the movie’s best writing and most inspired conceits compares favorably to the slovenly state of much contemporary comedy. And Mr. Guest, the man who put a Judy Tenuta T-shirt on Corky St. Clair in “Guffman,” still gets inventive little details just right, like his director character’s penchant for slobbish snacking on the job.
“For Your Consideration” is a likable movie — it’s just not lovable.