For Your Consideration
Written by Christopher Guest & Eugene Levy
Directed by Christopher Guest
Warner Independent
2006
Rating:


Christopher Guest's patented brand of mockumentary comedies about insular groups of naοve oddballs has been a delight since it first got cranked to 11 in the Rob Reiner-directed "This is Spinal Tap" in 1984. Since Guest stepped behind the camera and created his own sub-genre with "Waiting for Guffman" in 1994, he has gone on to hone his improvised craft with "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind." The joy of Guest's comedies, besides their sensational troupes, has been in the way their subject matter has become increasingly eccentric while remaining distinctly humanist and invigoratingly fresh in their humor.

"For Your Consideration" doesn't belong in the same class as Guest's other films (except for maybe the Chris Farley-Matthew Perry comedy "Almost Heroes") because, for the first time, the director has gone obvious and broad. He's also repeating himself. Guest mined the same material in his 1989 directorial debut "The Big Picture," a film about an idealistic first-time filmmaker (Kevin Bacon) who compromises himself for Hollywood acceptance.

Guest's latest movie similarly follows the cast and crew of the independent film "Home for Purim" as the tiny production begins to generate Oscar buzz. Guest drops the faux documentary style and adopts a satirical tone, but his lampoon has no bite. At a time when Oscars are practically bought and the movies recognized are merely the ones with the loudest publicists, Guest's parody arrives at exactly the right moment.

Surprisingly, Guest is timid instead of scathing and his depiction of filmmaking and Oscar campaigns wrongly presumes an audience familiar with "Entourage" doesn't know how such things are done. "Home for Purim's" small-minded subject matter and garish production wouldn't make it to the Sundance Film Festival, let alone spark Oscar buzz while it's still filming.

The main source of satire comes from what happens to the journeymen actors when they stop performing for the mere dignity of the work and begin doing it in the name of awards recognition. Catherine O'Hara most wonderfully portrays this tragic transformation. Her Marilyn Hack initially feels lucky to just be in a movie at all and then becomes increasingly greedy at the prospect of Oscar glory. Yet the movie blunders here, too, skipping the transition between Marilyn's timid desperation and her transformation into a Botox-ed publicity hound.

"For Your Consideration" underserves O'Hara's brilliant performance, just as it's unfit to be placed in the Guest canon.

Posted Friday, January 5, 2007

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