Review: 'Consideration' Falls Short Of Predecessors

'For Your Consideration' (PG-13)(out of four)

Something unexpected occurs in the final moments of Christopher Guest's latest comedy, "For Your Consideration" -- a far departure from his infectious "Waiting for Guffman," his riotous "Best In Show" or his surprisingly sweet-hearted "A Mighty Wind."

We turn on the characters.

In an age when comedies have turned dark and mean, when we don't laugh with our movies so much laugh at them -- at the pain and embarrasment of others -- Guest's films have flown in the face of convention. Sure, the pathetic acting troupe in "Guffman," the eccentric dog owners in "Show" and the out-of-touch folk singers in "Wind" are the butts of many jokes.

But somehow Guest tempered the comedy with endearing portraits that also made these caricatures lovable.

That's why the most memorable moments in his work are not jokes at all, but affectionate asides. In "Guffman," we join the amateur cast in being devastated when the big theater producer doesn't show. In "Best In Show," we wait with bated breath to see who will be declared the winner. In "Wind," we wait for a kiss that will herald the revival of a long-loved folk duo.

This isn't your typical Adam Sandler schtick; it's affecting and moving, and we laugh because we love them.

But not so in "For Your Consideration." For the first time abandoning the documentary approach, Guest backs a little too far away from his regular cast of improvisers, constructing the story as a standard narrative. At its center are four actors: the washed-up commercial star Victor Allan Miller (Harry Shearer), the past-her prime Marilyn Hack (Catherine O'Hara), the newcomer (Christopher Moynihan) and the bubbly Callie Webb (Parker Posey).

They are the cast of what seems to be an awful, Frank Capra-esque holiday film, "Home For Purim," a ho-hum project which starts spiraling out of control once online Oscar buzz ripples across the set.

Fred Willard and Jane Lynch, two of the funniest of regular Guest players, serve this time as the host of an "Entertainment Tonight-like" show, Eugene Levy plays an arrogant and out-to-lunch agent and Guest himself plays the sloppy, grubby, detached director of "Purim."

One by one, the good old group makes their appearance and we chuckle -- at Willard's hair, O'Hara's exaggerated plastic surgery, Guest's unusual acting exercises -- but for all practical purposes, this film starts at a light boil and ends at a low simmer. There isn't anything groundbreaking or inventive here, just a welcome embrace of the same faces in new costumes, all trying to ham it up.

Guest's decision to present the film in a more cinematic manner does not so much free "Consideration" from the burdens or expectations established by its predecessors as cause this chapter to lose its final connection with what made those works so notable to begin with.

These movies have always been about their improvisation, even to a fault. Train the camera on some of the funniest people working in movies today, and let them run wild, creating quirky, hilarious and unpredictable characters.

But with "Consideration," we are separated from these characters, the camera seeing from afar, the editing rushing forward and the subtleties -- such as O'Hara's breakdown on an LA morning show -- in short supply.

Near the end, right where we'd typically be growing closer to Guest's cast, we find ourselves looking at a bit of freak show -- at a parade of losers, unable to escape the realization that we are not laughing with, but at.

Is it time that Guest found some new personalities worth exploring and getting close to?

Or tried something new?