For Your Consideration (DVD)

...low budget, over-ripe melodrama "Home for Purim" about a bunch of Southern Jews getting together for the matriarch's favourite holiday. No-one has high hopes for the movie until veteran Marilyn Hack reads Oscar buzz about herself on the internet. Before you know it everyone has bought into the hype; performers, producers and critics alike…

Writer-director Christopher Guest is best known for his improv-heavy mockumentaries, ...
...his central characters too much for it to have any real bite. The true object of his derision is the larger filmmaking establishment and the media, which propagates awards frenzies. But you don't see enough of them for the film to take serious pot-shots. That being said, the segments of a fake entertainment show and the other Oscar contenders are the strongest parts of the movie. The film-within-a-film "Home for Purim" is amusingly melodramatic ... more

A bunch of jobbing actors are working on the low budget, over-ripe melodrama "Home for Purim" about a bunch of Southern Jews getting together for the matriarch's favourite holiday. No-one has high hopes for the movie until veteran Marilyn Hack reads Oscar buzz about herself on the internet. Before you know it everyone has bought into the hype; performers, producers and critics alike…

Writer-director Christopher Guest is best known for his improv-heavy mockumentaries, but here he eschews his trademark format for a straight narrative. He still creates scenarios and allows his actors to improvise within that framework, but this is a story with a definite beginning, middle and end. As usual he's dealing with a parade of more or less lovable losers whose dreams are trampled by the cruel whimsy of fate. The whole movie is one long procession of crushing embarrassments and shattered delusions. But in terms of satire, I don't think it's as strong as his previous output. He likes his central characters too much for it to have any real bite. The true object of his derision is the larger filmmaking establishment and the media, which propagates awards frenzies. But you don't see enough of them for the film to take serious pot-shots. That being said, the segments of a fake entertainment show and the other Oscar contenders are the strongest parts of the movie. The film-within-a-film "Home for Purim" is amusingly melodramatic but is not funny in and of itself. The "behind the scenes" sections are there to show up the players as jaded (Victor), ignorant of reality (Marilyn) or narcissistic (Callie). The crew are the only people you could refer to as knowledgeable. The characterisation is consistent, but the characters are nothing new, even feeling like tinsel-town stereotypes on occasion. That you can relate to them as people is down to the actors performing them. The dialogue is where the film comes alive in a smorgasbord of mixed metaphors, non-sequiturs, pseudo-artistic babble and amusingly inane chatter.

Guest's direction is subtle and unobtrusive, so you often feel as though you've really stumbled on these conversations. Meanwhile the film-within-a-film is made as stagy as possible. From the dodgy wigs, excessive make-up and wobbly sets to the hammy acting, everything feels like a send-up of the low-budget film scene. But by far the most amusing segments are those of the cheesy entertainment show that kick-starts the Oscar fever. It's a beautifully observed parody of those dreadful filler shows that favour hyper-enthusiastic, utterly insincere hosts with a talent for talking about nothing in easily edited sound-bites. They are the kind of people the film is really taking a dig at and the portrait painted of them is far from flattering. As an impartial observer you can see them building up the unfortunate stooges just to knock them down. And the reactions from the actors when they think they're on the up-and-up show how the media creates monsters. There are diva-style hissy fits, ill-advised cosmetic surgery (Catherine O'Hara should get an award just for holding her face in a rictus grin for so long) and the crushing embarrassment as nomination hopefuls set out on the awards trail.

There is a sense of predictability because you know Guest is more interested in losers than winners, so you know things are going to go horribly wrong for all concerned. But the aftermath of the Oscar nominations' announcement are as funny as they are poignant. His visual style is a little pedestrian; lots of fixed cameras allowing the characters to wander in and out of scenes at will. But he still maintains the lack of gloss that characterises his other films, in an attempt to keep a sense of reality.

As usual Guest relies on his cast's improvisational skills to bring the laughs. He shot fifty hours of footage to boil down into an eighty-six minute film. The great thing about his movies is that he can pull together an experienced comic ensemble. Most of the actors have now worked together so often that they have wonderful naturalistic chemistry and simply slot into their required roles. Catherine O'Hara is always good value because whatever her character's shortcomings, they all have underlying humanity. This is certainly true of Marilyn Hack whose transformation from tired frump to botoxed mutton is one of the key comic events of the movie. You can almost smell the desperation oozing off her. Harry Shearer is relaxed as tired jobbing actor Victor Alan Miller, though his desire for fame is ably shown in a cringing moment where he boogies on down on an MTV show with blazing white gnashers.

Co-writer Eugene Levy shucks off his usual nice-guy persona to play Victor's grasping agent, who forgets about him entirely until Oscar enters the equation. Posey Parker gives another of her brittle performances as failed stand-up Callie Webb. She's a vicious and vindictive harpy who takes all her insecurities about her shortcomings out on others. Ricky Gervais' brand of naturalistic comedy fits the movie hand to glove as studio boss Martin Gibb. Fred Willard continues to be one of my favourite Guest bit-parters as sincerity vacuum Chuck, an irritatingly chipper, metaphor-mixing entertainment show host with a penchant for trendy haircuts. He's wonderfully asinine and shares some great acerbic bitchiness with on-screen co-host and fellow Guest regular Jane Lynch. Jennifer Coolidge gives another of her squeaky-voiced airhead turns as producer Whitney Taylor Brown and Michael McKean and Bob Balaban show up in a cameo as the "Home For Purim" writers.

It seems odd the incidental music took three people to write it. I suspect the credits for Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy relate to the rather odd Purim song the family sing around the table - it doesn't feel quite real. Otherwise there's very little music to speak of; a few harmonica and string motifs, some light orchestral style incidental tunes, some traditional Jewish strings and a few light jazz string twinkles. The film is book-ended by jazzy mono versions of "Hooray for Hollywood" that sum up the hopes and dreams of the protagonists. Though always appropriate, the music isn't terribly memorable.

"For Your Consideration" is an also-ran in Christopher Guest's illustrious career as satirical writer and director. Amusing though moments of the film are, it's a far from consistent rib-tickler. Unlike many of his earlier works, this is film lacking bite, failing to pinpoint the real villains of the piece and going too soft on the actors and their delusions of grandeur. Considering the film is made up from the best of fifty hours of footage, you'd expect the laughs to come thicker and faster. Though the cast is more than willing to go along with the story and manage to be both funny and human, there's just not enough to the movie to make it a classic. 

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