For Your Consideration

Christopher Guest’s zany comic ensemble pieces have always been some of my very favorite comedies (see Waiting for Guffman, Best In Show, A Mighty Wind). Now added to that list is For Your Consideration, a whip smart parable about how the politics of Hollywood corrupt art and ruin artists’ passion for the work itself. In the film within the film, Home for Purim, a Jewish daughter is coming home to visit her dying mother on the little known Jewish holiday called Purim. On the set, kind hearted veteran actress Marilyn Hack (Catherine O’Hara) is reeling from the news that her performance as the dying mom in the film has earned a small amount of Oscar buzz on the internet. Soon the whole cast is murmuring rumors and everyone from the actors to the studio executives are making plays for media attention and awards consideration. Eventually, those involved in the production become bitter and manipulative while the film itself is butchered beyond recognition in order to “reach a wider audience.” By the end, everyone is a loser and it’s a sad state of affairs indeed.

More than plot, it’s the utter brilliance of the cast that carries these largely improvised films to hilarious heights. Truthfully, the whole cast is flawless. Guest’s troupe of comic masterminds never ceases to create memorable and excruciatingly funny characters. O’Hara in particular is a wonder to behold. Part bawdy comedienne and part soulful actress, she can make you laugh and break your heart all in the same scene. I have always insisted that she was robbed of an Oscar nomination for A Might Wind and she will probably be robbed of one again this year. Fellow lead actors Parker Posey and Harry Shearer also shine here as do supporting players such as Jennifer Coolidge, Eugene Levy, Jane Lynch, and Fred Willard. The latter two do a freakishly good parody of “Access Hollywood” and other trashy media programs. Lynch does especially well here, giving a dead on impersonation of the tone and posture of the hosts of such shows. It’s so precise and yet so ludicrous at the same time. I have no idea how she does it.

I can’t say that this is Guest’s best film. It’s not as outright funny as Best In Show or as surprisingly tender as A Mighty Wind. He also disowns the mockumentary style he helped pioneer and in the process loses some of the energy and spontaneity of his classic films. However, this is probably his most incisive and culturally relevant satire to date. Its laughs feel more painfully honest than the rest and its moments of sadness strike with a certain sharpness absent in the more outrageous films of his past. It all feels so possible and so truthful given what we know about how movies get marketed and how they get pimped out to Oscar voters come every December. As Oscar season gears up, this is a perfectly appropriate bit of self deprecation that should keep every self important movie minded individual (including myself) on their toes.

Grade: A