For Your Consideration
Does Christopher Guest love movies or hate them? I hope it’s the former, but his shrill dismissal of everyone involved in the film industry suggests the latter. “For Your Consideration” chronicles the making of a wretched independent film, “Home for Purim,” a hokey period melodrama about a Southern Jewish family. A blogger starts a rumor that one of the performances is Oscar-worthy, and the undistinguished cast is sent down the buzz-making assembly line. “For Your Consideration” starts out promisingly but devolves into paint-by-numbers satire, with gags Adam Sandler’s writers would reject as old hat: The aging, talentless female lead, buoyed by the possibility of a nomination, gets plastic surgery that leaves her face stretched and expressionless. And the financiers change the title of the movie to “Home for Thanksgiving” to get rid of the overt “Jewish-ness.” Never mind that this change would require every scene of the film-within-the-film to be reshot or completely butchered in the editing room; Guest appears to assume that his audience knows as little about moviemaking as the obtuse director he plays. He’s very good, by the way, as is most of the cast. As always, much of the dialogue is improvised, although he does away with the faux-testimonials that led “Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show” and “A Mighty Wind” to be labeled “mockumentaries” — a term he disavowed, because he says he doesn’t set out to mock his characters. Until this time. The critical hegemony on Guest suggests that he peaked with “Guffman” or “Show” and it’s been downhill since, and I’m inclined to agree. “For Your Consideration” is slight, belabored and forgettable — save for the great Fred Willard, who brings his signature sunny obliviousness to an aging infotainment show host. He has a tireless, effortless comic brio. I can’t say the same for Guest.