Review

Review Date: 26-November-06
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Junk

For Your Consideration (2006)

I offer for your consideration the wonderful theater farce "Waiting for Guffman" (1997), the amusing dog-show spoof "Best in Show" (2000), and even the flawed folk-singer picture "A Mighty Wind" (2003) to remind you that Christopher Guest can make funny films. I like and admire the man, who clothed himself in glory playing Nigel Tufnel in "This is Spinal Tap" and then went on to establish a distinctive brand of ensemble comedy with a devoted and talented troupe. His latest offering, "For Your Consideration," fails in part because I know what he and his colleagues have done before. It makes the earlier films look better by proving that free-flowing wit is no easy accomplishment.

Guest & Co. appear to be straining throughout this laborious effort, which takes place on the set of a low-budget movie electrified by visions of Academy Awards. The central character is an aging actress named Marilyn Hack (Catherine O'Hara) who's mentioned as a potential Oscar nominee on an Internet blog and clings to the idea like a drowning rat to driftwood. Soon afterward, her leading man (Harry Shearer) picks up some buzz, followed by their younger co-stars who happen to be lovers (Parker Posey and Christopher Moynihan). Everybody's life is deliberately or incidentally disrupted as the limelight expands to touch the screenwriters, the producer, and the various appendages to the crew, most of whom are played by Guest regulars.

The target of the joke is of course Hollywood and its folly, but the satire isn't very biting. It sounds odd for me to say this, but the plot is almost too personal, too reliant on the individual characters and their lives to be considered a lampoon. The only really laughable parodies are a couple of entertainment show hosts (Fred Willard and Jane Lynch) who go over the top in their aggressive shallowness. Scenes from the movie within the movie, "Home for Purim," are also amusing by dint of overstated melodrama (the plot includes a dying Jewish mother, a son home from World War II, and daughter needing acceptance of her lesbianism). But the patter between eccentrics, the nuggets of situational whimsy are missing. Watching "For Your Consideration" involves groping towards oases of occasional chuckles or (in the case of poor Marilyn) occasional flinches in a desert of arid nonfunniness. I know everyone in the flick can do better, so I consider it a disappointment.

Copyright © 2006 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.