Not the best Guest
Any new movie by director Christopher Guest attracts excitement because of his unique methods of filmmaking.
Guest has turned the satirical mockumentary into an art form, with brilliant screen offerings like Waiting For Guffman, Best In Show and The Mighty Wind. Those films showed Guest’s skill as he tackled a subject and then deliciously skewered it with the aid of his brilliant ensemble cast.
In his latest film, For Your Consideration, Guest probes into the world of hype in the lead-up to Hollywood’s award season, the period when movie studios begin lobbying for their films to win nominations at various awards.
With such a rich topic worthy of satire, Guest for some reason decided to do away with his trademark mockumentary style and instead tells For Your Consideration in narrative dramatic style. This is the first, but unfortunately not the last, disappointment of For Your Consideration, a film which fails spectacularly in the one area a comedy should never fail in -“ it is not that funny.
There is something definitely amiss with the film. The same casts of the previous films have been re-assembled but this time their characters are not clearly defined, the scenarios they deal with are not particularly interesting, the story thuds along without any pace and the gags are missing.
The story opens with a movie cast working at a Hollywood studio on a family drama Home For Purim, in which a dying mother and her estranged lesbian daughter are forced to confront their troubled past over the days of a family gathering.
When word leaks onto an internet movie site that the film is so good the cast is sure to be nominated for Oscars, the trouble begins -“ both on the set and in the lives of the actors working on the film.
Catherine O’Hara as actress Marilyn Hack attempting a comeback in the family drama is the only one of the For Your Consideration cast who makes something of her role.
O’Hara adds a real dimension, and some well needed laughs, as her Marilyn becomes totally obsessed by the hype that she will be nominated for an Oscar. Her physical makeover as she awaits news of the nominations provides the film’s only laugh-out-loud moment.
Guest regulars like Harry Shearer, Jennifer Coolidge, Eugene Levy, Parker Posey and Ed Begley Jr all appear unsure of what level to play the comedy of the tale.
Coolidge as a ditzy producer and Begley as the camp hair and make-up artist have the most to work with but do nothing with the comic opportunities of their roles.
It is in the final section of the film that the humour takes a turn from attempting satire to just being bitter and harsh. But by this stage, the joke of the concept has worn itself out and For Your Consideration has outstayed its welcome, with the abrupt, irresolute ending arriving as something of a relief.
