 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
For Your Consideration
- Directed by: Christopher Guest
- Starring: Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Ricky Gervais
- Release Date: 9 February 2007
He may have pioneered the 'mockumentary' with This Is Spinal Tap, but Christopher Guest's latest film is too little, too late
For Your Consideration sees Christopher Guest take a violent stab at Hollywood's showbiz bubble. On the set of a low-budget Jewish melodrama, the cast (led by Catherine O'Hara et al.) hear that maybe, just maybe, their movie is being considered for an Oscar. Hype breeds more hype until 'Home For Porum' gets drowned in PR schmaltz, finally morphing into the sanitised 'Home For Thanksgiving'.
Just as A Mighty Wind rendered all music benefit gigs abhorrent via Guest's insider peek at public service broadcasting, so For Your Consideration aims to squash the pageantry of this year's Academy Awards. But, it doesn't. While it does expose La La Land for all its fickle harshities - and throws in an aptly-timed joke or two in the process - it's all just too LA, not to mention too late, to work.
Guest's use of botox, plastic surgery and E!-tv style interviewers prompted few laughs from the UK crowd. This is no doubt because, in a post-Extras climate, we expect way wittier, harsher exposés of the celebrity-as-fool.
Similarly, since The Office, Gervais doing 'Gervais' is old news.
The on-set spoofery central to those shows owes a huge debt to Guest's films
- Gervais admitted as much in last year's sycophantic trilogy Ricky
Gervais Meets. but mutual appreciation has hit melting point. For
Your Consideration is not as strong as Best In Show or even
Extras; it's hard-hitting and moralistic, but fails on the spine-tingling
cringe we've come to expect.
Georgie Hobbs
Read More
Related Links
