For Your Consideration

Another amusing Christopher Guest mockumentary, this time set in Hollywood and targeting the hoopla and absurdity surrounding the Oscar's and promise of a nomination. 

It took me a little while to warm up to this one, but eventually I got into it and it had some pretty funny moments. It is really quite clever in places, and it's probably not that much of a stretch that a small movie and those involved could be swept up in the rumors of possible Academy Awards in such an extreme manner. 

The usual Guest regulars are all here, and so is his particular sense of humor that you either get, or you don't. It's a safe bet that you'll probably like For Your Consideration about as much as you liked other Guest movies like Best in Show. Manage your expectations accordingly.

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. In an impressive string of wonderful mockumentary farces over the past few years, guiding lights Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, and their brilliant comedic acting ensemble, have joyfully savaged the self-important cultural "worlds" of small town amateur theater ("Waiting for Guffman"), dog shows ("Best in Show") and folk music ("A Mighty Wind").

But a winning formula can't go on forever unchanged, nor should we expect it to. Inevitably, the group have hit a bump in the road with their latest film, "For Your Consideration," a send-up of Hollywood movie making and the assorted vanities of movie makers. Not that it's bad. But compared to those earlier works, it isn't inspired; it doesn't grab you with its efforts to lampoon; and the performances of the actors - always uniformly of a high caliber in most of their movies – is highly variable in this new movie. Perhaps the theme hits too close to home: it's hard to gain the distance necessary to properly ridicule your own ethos, your own cultural world. Or maybe it's just that the recipe Guest and Levy have used to such delightful advantage has just gotten old, for viewers and for Guest's company.

The plot, for what it's worth, concerns a film within a film: the making of a new movie, the ethnically freighted "Home for Purim," which is later rewritten and retitled "Home for Thanksgiving" to broaden its commercial box office appeal. All the stereotypes one expects are on hand: the avaricious executive producers; the harried director; the screenwriters, pained by the incremental decimation of their work; the aging stars in decline; the young up and comings; the vain chase after that holiest of grails: an Oscar, the hangers on – the parasitic, disingenuous talent agent, talk show hosts, film critics and entertainment reporters. They're all here.

Parker Posey (young actress possibly on the way up), Catherine O'Hara ((veteran actress on the way out), Jennifer Coolidge (ditzy producer), and Eugene Levy (actors' agent) provide decent turns but none of these superb talents gives a truly inspired performance here. Harry Shearer is better as a long-suffering actor who is glad enough just to star in a feature film after years of making commercials, Oscar or no Oscar. But the comedic scene stealers in this movie are three pairs of actors who play off each other to wonderful effect: Fred Willard and Jane Lynch as a TV entertainment reporting duo, Bob Balaban and Michael McKean as the beleaguered screenwriters, and Don Lake and Michael Hitchcock as Siskel-Ebert style TV critics. There are several competent cameo contributors as well, the best of whom is Carrie Aizley, a movie journalist.

This is decent fare, but I think Guest and Levy need to re-imagine their formula for successful farce. I never thought the day would come when I would regard a comedy written by David Mamet as superior to work by Guest & Levy, but here's a tip: if you want to see a good send-up of movie making, try Mamet's 2000 film, "State and Main." My grades: 6.5/10 (low B) (Seen on 11/15/06)

There is something both enchanting and disorienting about watching a Christopher Guest film that features conventional camera angles and a narrative structure. It is a brave, and ultimately, a rewarding choice for a director who has built his impeccable reputation on the strength of his mockumentaries.

Like its predecessors Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration is largely improvised, and reunites the same winning cast. Gone, however, are several of the conventions of Guest's previous films. For Your Consideration avoids the need to give every last character an extended 'interview' segment and instead weaves minor characters naturally into the fabric of the story. The narrative structure also prevents Guest from relying too heavily on cuts to b-roll sight gags that, while funny, are never more than gags. By challenging himself to tell this story in the absence of these and other mockumentary techniques, Guest is allowed to focus instead on scenes that show how his characters really respond to one another in the moment.

Half the fun of course is waiting for all the familiar faces to show up, and discovering what crazy character they have inhabited this time around. All the usual suspects are back in For Your Consideration, playing a colourful array of Hollywood types. Insecurities, foibles - and just a few quirks - are in full display.

Jennifer Coolidge is a brilliantly clueless producer, and Eugene Levy has a nice turn as a somewhat smarmy agent who has no faith whatsoever in his client (Harry Shearer's Victor Ann Miller). Guest himself is hilarious playing director Jay Berman, and one only wishes that we got to see more of his rehearsals with the actors, as these are some of the funniest scenes in the film. Mike McKean and Bob Balaban are a fun team as the cowriters of Home for Purim, the movie-within-the-movie. Making his first appearance in a Guest film, Ricky Gervais grabs perhaps the biggest laugh of all with a line that I won't spoil here. And while Fred Willard and Jane Lynch are dealt very broad characters, their send-up of Access Hollywood is laugh-out-loud funny, and provides the perfect vehicle for Willard's boorish shtick.

John Michael Higgins is in amazing form as Corey Taft, sporting surreal philosophies on actors and life that outdo even his colour-worshipping character from A Mighty Wind. And the doe-eyed and endlessly endearing Christopher Moynihan tosses off several absolute gems in response to the inanity going on around him. Much like his character in the film, he's likely to go unnoticed in favour of some flashier performances, but deserves accolades of his own. He and Parker Posey have a sweet, unrehearsed chemistry playing actors in puppy love.

While it is impossible to give due screen time to all of the troupe's mainstays, some deserved better. Jim Piddock is dealt a potentially juicier part than he's had in the past, as the irritable AD who is all too aware that he's surrounded by idiots. But his screen time is far too short to let it amount to much, and fans wanting to see him play against type are better advised to check out his brilliant performance in See This Movie. Meanwhile, Ed Begley Jr. is hideously miscast as the film's token flamboyant gay man. Furthermore, having such recognizable actors as Claire Forlani and particularly Sandra Oh show up for bit parts in For Your Consideration is more distracting than anything, and breaks the illusion of the self-contained world that worked so nicely in Guest's previous efforts.

Despite all of the comedic talent on display however, this is Catherine O'Hara's show, and she more than delivers in her role as fading screen star Marilyn Hack. Her insecurities, dreams, and vulnerabilities are handled with such poignancy and humour that O'Hara fully deserves whatever accolades may come her way in the months to come. She is luminous.

If For Your Consideration comes up a little short, it is in the story department. The outline devised by Guest and Levy suffers somewhat from a lack of focus. If, as Guest insists, this film is not intended as a satire of Hollywood but is rather the tragicomic tale of what happens to someone when they are told that they deserve an award, we should be spending less time on all the Hollywood in-jokes and parodies, and more time with the characters themselves.

We don't learn quite enough about our main characters – those portrayed by Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer, and Parker Posey – to really understand how monumental it is for them to be caught up in the Oscar hype. We see that, professionally, they desperately need the break. But we get no perspective on how this effects their personal lives, or changes the way that they relate to the people closest to them. Where are their families? Their friends? They don't seem to have any. And if that was the point in and of itself, it wasn't brought across clearly enough.

Whatever the film's shortcomings, it is the smaller details that are purely Guest which make this film a triumph and future classic: Guest's perfect intonation as he instructs one actor to deliver his line as though "Mommy is going… now?", Jennifer Coolidge jumping in at the absolute perfect moment with "But what about me!?" in the midst of a heated argument that has nothing to do with her, or the sight of Harry Shearer suddenly wearing Rachael Harris' hat to help him get into character. These are the small moments that give Guest's works the rare distinction of being films that get progressively funnier with each viewing.

My hope for the next Guest film is that it continues to stretch the troupe in the way that these last two films have done. Ideally, we'll see an improvised, narrative comedy with some heart, all the expected hilarity… and a little more plot structure. Until then, here it is, for your consideration

The thing most Christopher Guest movies have going for them is their humanity. I always could believe the universe the characters were operating in, and their realism (see the dog owners in Best in Show or the small town citizens of Waiting for Guffman). That humanity transcended the satire and made the movies both hysterical and moving. FYC completely lost the humanity that drives these films. Almost all of the characters were not believable. In this instance Guest's improvisational technique failed him as the actors were all over the top, playing too much to the satire. Only two actors seemed in touch with their characters - Parker Posey (who we really saw too little of to understand her) and the great Catherine O'Hara, who sold both the aging actor she was portraying and the Jewish mother in the film within the film.

I'm also surprised by some of the negative commentary around 'For your Consideration'. The satire seemed to me to be to be quite precise - particularly in its analysis of the average actor's life - which is a lot more like "For Your Consideration" or Ricky Gervais's brilliant "The Extras" than anything you're likely to see on Entertainment Tonight that is for sure.

Having studied method acting over several years (a long time ago), and having worked as an extra at different low points in my life (never ever again), I have to say that I laughed till I cried. Without giving the ending away,Marilyn Hacke's closing scene is so on the money - what a cracker!

Acting, actor training and film are all open to exploitation of the gullible because so many people are desperate to be part of it; consequently it's an area ripe for satire. For me, this was more on the money than "Waiting for Guffman" although I enjoyed that too. For your consideration has sharper edges. I think it's great that Ricky Gervais performs in this film. Gervaise is such an 'English' comic whilst Guest's sensibilities are very American - but in the shared fascination with human idiosyncracies, banalities and foibles, they both create a very contemporary form of the comedy of manners.