For Your Consideration

I love Christopher Guest.

For those of you saying, "Who?": Please go rent This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind. In that order. Honestly, you won't be sorry.

For the rest, this review is for you.

You're wondering, how does this film stack up with the rest of Guest's work as a writer/director? (I include Tap, though Rob Reiner directed that.) Well, it's pretty darn good. Bearing in mind that this is my first viewing, and that Guest films get better with repeat viewings, I'd put Consideration ahead of A Mighty Wind and almost even with Best in Show, though still significantly behind Guffman and Tap.

Consideration is a significant departure for Guest, primarily because that it's not a mockumentary. It does still include plenty of interviews, but in this case the interviewers are characters in the film as well. The non-mockumentary style is a bit of a shock at first, but it doesn't take long to get used to.

In nearly all other ways, however, the film is vintage Guest. It's fueled by an enormous ensemble cast--larger than previous movies. So large, in fact, that even the core actors are on screen for no more than thirty minutes in total. And like all other Guest movies, it features mediocre people reaching for an elusive taste at greatness.

In the case of For Your Consideration, it's a group of people working on a low-budget, narrow-audience film called Home for Purim. The actors in the film are all either past their prime or never had a prime, and the crew are not without their own endearing quirks. But the best way to take this movie apart is by handing out...

Cast Report Cards
First, for the old guard (appeared in Guffman or Tap):
-Catherine O'Hara, as Marilyn Hack, is solid as the lead and mother figure of Home for Purim and the first to get Oscar buzz. She's brilliant at the beginning but gets a bit hammy toward the end. B+
-Harry Shearer doesn't particularly stand out as Victor Allan Miller, the father in Purim, but his quiet competence keeps the film nicely grounded. A-
-Parker Posey is stellar as usual, this time as Callie Webb, the daughter in Purim. She goes a bit over the top in one scene, but overall she does a wonderful job inviting the audience to share in her emotion. A-
-Christopher Guest, himself, puts in perhaps his worst performance to date as Jay Berman, the director. He's amusing in his brief screen time, but this is the least-believable Guest character I've seen. He gets a C.
-Eugene Levy brilliantly handles a role he's perfectly suited for, that of Victor Allan Miller's unscrupulous agent. Solid A.
-Bob Balaban and Michael McKean are decent in a smallish role as Purim's writers, Philip Koontz and Lane Iverson. The two are individually excellent, but don't have much chemistry together, so a B apiece here.
-Don Lake and Michael Hitchcock are sublime as Siskel/Ebert/Roper send-ups: Ben Lilly and David van Zyverden, two critics who can never agree. The scene where they weigh in on Purim made me laugh harder than any other scene in the movie. A+
-Fred Willard does his usual clueless ham schtick, here as Chuck Porter, co-host of a "Entertainment Tonight"-type show. He's good, but he doesn't steal the movie the way he did in Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. So, largely because of the high standards he's set, he only gets a B.

And the new guard (Best in Show and later):
-Willard's co-host Cindy Martin is played by Jane Lynch, who is excellent. It's hard to carve out space next to Willard, but Lynch does so beautifully and believably. So A-.
-Jennifer Coolidge is hilarious in every scene she's in as Whitney Taylor Brown, the producer. She's probably the one actor who consistently outfunnies everyone she acts with in this film: A+.
-Ed Begley Jr. is relatively unrecognizable as flamboyant make-up artist Sandy Lane. It's rather different sort of role for him, but he pulls it off with aplomb: A.
-Christopher Moynihan is perfectly average as Brian Chubb, the son in Purim. He does nothing to distinguish himself but also nothing to embarrass himself in one of the film's larger roles, so h gets a B.
-John Michael Higgins turns in a confident and comical performance as publicist Corey Taft: A-.
-Rachael Harris' performance is notably competent as Mary Pat Hooligan, Parker Posey's girlfriend in Purim: A-.

Some new folks--all of whom you might recognize from television--turn up as well.
Ricky Gervais (David Brendt in the British "The Office") rocks as studio exec Martin Gibb (A), completely outshining his co-exec, Guest regular Larry Miller (B-).
From the American version of "The Office," Jim (aka John Krasinski) pops up superbriefly as an actor in a competing film--too briefly to warrant a grade, in fact.
Other faces you might recognize include Sandra Oh (Dr. Cristina Yang in "Grey's Anatomy") and Richard Kind (Mark from "Mad About You"), who help out the film as a marketing team.

All together, it's a charming little comedy that merits at least one viewing, if not more. It's a solid B+, and on the 22 scale, it's a 10.