Review: Satirical film pokes fun at film industry

Directed by: Christopher Guest

Starring: Catherine O’Hara, Harry Shearer, Eugene Levy, Christopher Guest, Parker Posey

Rated: PG-13

Christopher Guest’s pedigree in satire is a pure one. After starting his career as a stage actor in the late 1960s, he veered toward satire with a role in the black comedy “The Hospital” in 1971. Around that time he began writing for the venerable “National Lampoon” magazine and was a writer/performer on “The National Lampoon Radio Show” and in “National Lampoon’s Lemmings,” a successful off-Broadway musical comedy production that skewered the Woodstock generation.

He won an Emmy for his writing for Lily Tomlin’s 1975 TV special, wrote for the short lived “Saturday Night with Howard Cossell” and did a brief stint on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”

In 1984, Guest cemented his reputation by co-writing and co-starring in the brilliant Rob Reiner film, “This is Spinal Tap.” That movie invented the genre known as the “mockumentary” and Guest, as a director, has returned to the form many times.

“Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show” and “A Mighty Wind” are “mockumentaries” that Guest developed with co-writer Eugene Levy. These films are scripted, to be sure, but Guest says the scripts contain no dialogue. He, Levy and their ensemble cast of regulars improvise their lines as the film is being shot. The results have proven to be consistently hilarious.

Guest and Levy co-wrote “For Your Consideration.” While the dialogue, again, is improvised and the ensemble cast is comprised of the usual “Guest list,” the form is more straight satire than fake documentary.

The film examines – with tongue in cheek – the vacuous universe of Hollywood filmmaking and the fragile egos, shameless game-playing, enormous amount of unadulterated bull and unceasing catering that accompany it.

This subject has been broached before in films such as “Living in Oblivion” and Guest’s own directorial debut, “The Big Picture.” It was the late Robert Altman who set the standard with his masterpiece, “The Player.” It’s unlikely that any satire of the movie business will ever top that film, but just because you aren’t Jimi Hendrix doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play guitar.

“For Your Consideration” deals with the making of a film entitled “Home for Purim.” For those of us in this decidedly “gentile-centric” part of America, Purim is a Jewish holiday that has its roots in the Old Testament book of Esther.

Guest plays the director of “Home for Purim,” which is an over-the-top melodramatic Jewish/Southern Gothic film starring a cast of has-beens and wannabes.

Catherine O’Hara is Marilyn Hack, an actress well beyond her salad days. Harry Shearer is Victor Allan Miller, an actor best known these days for his portrayal of a wiener in TV commercials.

It’s readily apparent that “Home for Purim” is going to be a disaster, but when word gets out on the set that there is already a “buzz” surrounding Hack’s portrayal of the dying matriarch and she may be nominated for an Oscar, the mood changes and the relationships among all involved are affected. That’s the basic plot, but the hilarious devils are in the details.

Guest and company are intimate with the business, politics and day-to-day machinations of making a movie and seem to delight in taking shots at those who are so richly deserving.

As Victor’s agent is telling him he’s the only client that matters, the agent interrupts the pep talk to take a cell phone call. The press agent for the film, when told to “Google” something, asks if that has something to do with “the Interweb, the thing with the e-mail?” When the actors are having trouble with a scene, the director tells them “We’ll throw the script away, we’ll improvise,” an idea that doesn’t please the writers who are on-set to see that their play is translated properly to film. In an interview with the film’s producer, a woman with much more money than filmmaking savvy, tries to explain what a producer does. “You wouldn’t believe all the things I have to pay for. Like snacks,” she says.

The coup-de-grace comes when the film company has a meeting with the writers, director and producer. The bigwigs assure everyone they love the film and think it’s going to be a hit. But they wonder if the whole “Jewishness” might need to be toned down to appeal to a broader audience.

The satire extends beyond the film industry to the TV shows that report on the film industry. There’s a movie review program that focuses on a critic who “loves every movie.” His partner across the aisle, of course, usually disagrees. Fred Willard and Jane Lynch host an “Entertainment Tonight”-style show, making Oscar predictions wearing turbans. Willard’s character in particular seems to have absolutely no idea what’s going on, nor any shame in his approach. The show takes its cameras on location the morning of the Oscar nominations to get reactions from the “losers.”

Guest and his usual crew stray from their framework of the fictional documentary but their skills in satire are as honed as ever in “For Your Consideration.” If there is any justice in Hollywood, Catherine O’Hara might even get nominated for her excellent work here. But she should hold off on the collagen injections for now.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.