Review: “For Your Consideration” (2006)
For ten years and now four movies (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind being the prior three) director Christopher Guest, his co-writer Eugene Levy, and their inspired cast of improvisers have perfected a very personal, signature comedy. Let’s call it the 85 minute deflated sigh, the realization that you can’t have what you want, that the stars are most certainly NOT the limit. The luckiest characters in Guest’s universe never realize this, and continue to march along to their own inward tune of mediocrity.
Guest’s movies have become increasingly melancholy, culminating in “A Mighty Wind”, the most emotionally rounded, satisfying of the three. The comedy of the clueless was still present (though not as mean as Guffman) but there was, especially in Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara’s raw performances, a newfound empathy, a sense that this what Guest and Levy had been working toward all along.
“For Your Consideration”, a spoof of Oscar fever as seen through the cast and crew of a broadly inane movie, has the lamest premise of the four, and Guest himself covered similar ground in the non-improvised, not bad “The Big Picture” in the early 1990s. The first half of Consideration, detailing the making of said movie, is underwhelming. Guest’s routine, his rhythm, has gotten predictable, and, as talented as the cast is, they are disappointingly unstretched. Its especially disheartening to see Levy, so good in Wind, return to playing the clueless schmiel that he’s honed in paycheck pictures.
But then Oscar hope spreads through the project like insidious wildfire, and “For Your Consideration”, at that point a forgettable fourth trip to a familiar well, becomes the blackest, most unflinching thing Guest has ever made, epitomized in Catherine O’Hara’s brilliant, wax figure freak show variation of Gloria Swanson’s work in Sunset Blvd. O’Hara plays Marilyn Hack, the lead of the film, and the one most damaged by delusions of grandeur. Hack’s fall, and her chilling final line, bluntly brings to the forefront everything Guest has been up to for the last decade. Catherine O’Hara is worth seeing the movie for, and, while the film is largely uneven, this direction leaves one wondering what Guest and Levy will be up to next.
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:04 am
I could not agree with you less about this film. Of all the movies that this team has made, the most important and incisively funny of them all was “Waiting for Guffman”. Since that time, Guest and Co. have been tripping down an ugly and increasingly disappointing path.
The characters in “Guffman” seem outlandish and cartoony, but anyone who has done even a little bit of amateur theatre can tell you that these people are very, very real. In fact, it’s kind of eerie how dead-on these characterizations are, especially considering that this cast is composed of people who haven’t had to do amateur work in a very long time. Slowly, though, over the course of the last few films, the cast (especially O’Hara and Levy) have attempted to add such depth and drama to their characters that it cuts into the bottom line of the movie- humor. It would be different, frankly, if they were effective. But the fact of the matter is that despite the fact that they’re brilliant comedians, they do not have a strong grasp of dramatic writing.
Christopher Guest and his casts suffer from two major diseases: The first is a sense that anything they do is going to be great. My outsider idea is that they probably have such a good time making these movies from start to finish (and they should; they’re a talented, funny bunch of people) that they can’t imagine that the final product might be bland or even alienating to their audience. The second is their tendency to stray away from their true strength. At their core, these people are comedians. Their senses of humor are very finely tuned. They are not adept at creating magnetic and deep characters. It would be a daunting task for anyone to try to be a sympathetic and serious character in the middle of a comedic improv, and this cast is just not up to it.
In fact, I’d like to note that the only member of this group that is consistently excellent is Fred Willard. The reason for that is that he doesn’t get bogged down trying to show off his characters’ feelings. He plays an obnoxious asshole every time -to perfection, I might add- and is always incredible. When he does want to show a little deeper motivation, he lets the jokes do it for him. For instance, at the end of “Guffman” when Willard and O’Hara are filming the Justin Boots commercial, the entire side story of Willard’s disappointment in his own lack of achievement is apparent despite the fact that it’s laugh-out-loud funny.
I laughed approximately twice over the course of “For Your Consideration”, and I did not care an iota about any of the characters or what happened to them. It was a trying film to finish and I was roundly disappointed. I hope that this cast takes a long look at what is funny and/or enjoyable for audiences, and starts making movies that are meant to be appreciated by the audience instead of by the cast.
PS, Chuck- killer site, man. I’m proud of you.
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:49 am
Wow, Nick, well said. I’ve heard the “Christopher Guest’s attempt at pathos undermines the good stuff” theory before, but this is the first time I was tempted to buy into it. I still disagree though, I think that “Guffman” is hilarious, but a wee bit one dimensional. It’s a one joke movie, and it still works so well because of the talent involved in the joke.
I think “A Mighty Wind” is the strongest of all of them because it asks you to give a shit, and doesn’t coast on the “gee, look how stupid these people are” superiority the entire time. Levy and O’Hara are heartbreaking and, this is important, still funny.
“For Your Consideration”, though, is easily the least of the films, and, O’Hara’s work excluded, I feel like I’ve seen everything here before, and better. I would imagine that you’re correct in implying that Guest and Co. have become a little self-congratulatory and insulated. As uninvolving as it is though, they seem to striving for something a little different toward the end of “Consideration” and its for this that I (mildly) applaud the work.
I think they should break up or reconfigure a little bit, or, shock of shocks, try a film that isn’t a mockumentary (”Consideration” isn’t strictly but its damn close”) or that somehow doesn’t tie into the entertainment business.
Glad to hear from you Nick, hope you keep reading.