A considered opinion of 'For Your Consideration'

The TOMB is disappointed by the first comedy we've managed to catch during the LFF.

Nov  1 2006

Monday was 'For Your Consideration' day at the London Film Festival, with a screening of Christopher Guest's latest film in the morning followed by a press conference with the talented cast in the afternoon.

Unfortunately, both were somewhat disappointing. Coming from the team that made the wonderful 'Waiting for Guffman', 'Best in Show' and 'A Mighty Wind', 'FYC' lacks that most important of components for a comedy – laughs.

This time around, Guest and his co-writer (and co-star) Eugene Levy have abandoned their faux documentary style in favour of a more traditional narrative, and it doesn't become their filmmaking style.

The flick's rather obvious target is Hollywood, and more specifically the crazy hoopla that surrounds Oscar season and the possibility of nominations. In this case, the fictional flick in question is 'Home for Purim', an intimate period drama about a Jewish family reunion that takes place as the matriarch lies on her deathbed.

When the all-important 'buzz' builds up around performances in the picture, actors Marilyn Hack (Catherine O’Hara) and Victor Allan Miller (Harry Shearer) loose all perspective on their work and awards fever starts to have a negative effect on every aspect of the production.

To be fair, the film does raise its fair share of smiles, but too often the characters and jokes seem smug and contrived, and as satire, it's remarkably tame material from such a talented and intelligent troupe. As usual, Fred Willard steals the show as the magnificently coiffed 'Hollywood Now' host Chuck Porter, but the rest of the ensemble underperform, and Ricky Gervais fares little better as studio president Martin Gibb.

The ensuing press conference, which featured Guest, Levy, O'Hara, Gervais and Shearer, also offered little in the way of laughs, though Guest did reveal that if anything he toned down the realities of the Oscar silly season for the film (perhaps he should have gone the other way and exaggerated it).

When asked about their opinion of the Academy Awards, the entire cast agreed that there was very little worth to Oscar nominations apart from the dollars they add to your gross. And something tells me that they won't have to worry about those problems when 'For Your Consideration' is up for consideration come the end of the year.

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