Waiting for Guffman, 2000’s Best in Show and 2003’s A Mighty Wind, Guest and his co-writer
and costar Eugene Levy (American Pie)
found a very specific and isolated subset (theater wonks, dog aficionados,
hippie-dippie musicians, et al) and through improv exercises with a faithful
ensemble located the humor in their seriousness and earnest obligation.

The story of the petty jealousies and rapacious career
desires that are awakened during the Oscar-touted production of a period piece
prestige film, For Your Consideration
harkens back in some ways to Waiting for
Guffman, in that turns its eye inward, toward theatrical performance. Yet
it also feels like it’s serving too many masters, and it represents at its core
a fundamental misreading of the pre-release Hollywood awards
derby buzz machine.

The story centers around the production of an independent
film, Home for Purim, that tells the
story of a Jewish family’s reunion on the occasion of the dying matriarch’s
favorite holiday. When Internet-generated rumors begin circulating that three
of Purim’s stars — faded luminary
Marilyn Hack (Catherine O’Hara), journeyman actor Victor Allan Miller (Harry
Shearer) and ingénue Callie Webb (Parker Posey), who’s involved with her screen
brother, Brian Chubb (Christopher Moynihan) — may be playing their way into
Oscar nods, excitement rattles the cast. Once a pair of Access Hollywood-esque tele-mag hosts (Jane Lynch and Fred Willard)
pick up the rumors, things really heat up.

For Your Consideration
is the first of Guest and Levy’s films to incorporate a straight narrative tack
instead of mockumentary noodling, and it’s ill-suited for the movie. The cast
is studded with fine performers (Ricky Gervais even pops up as an executive who
tries to tamp down the film’s “Jewishness”), and there are plenty of nice
one-liners at the expense of myopic Hollywood types. These
come from everyone from Willard’s characteristically oblivious host (“They’re
not only alive and well, but more importantly, they’re working” he says of
Marilyn and Victor) to a publicist who lectures an on-set reporter in charge of
crafting Purim’s EPK, “In every
actor, there’s a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale — you never know which
one is going to show up,” before further rattling off a hilarious list of
assumptions not to make when dealing with actors.

The comedy is broad, though, and many of the characters feel
wanly sketched, from Levy’s glad-handingly insincere talent agent, Morley
Orfkin, to John Michael Higgins’ clueless senior publicist Corey Taft, who we’re
supposed to believe is a P.R. mastermind who’s never heard of the Internet.
(“That’s the one with email, right?” he asks) It’s not that some of these angles
aren’t fair game, just that they feel both a bit hackneyed and unconnected to
the rest of what’s going on in the movie. For
Your Consideration also doesn’t seem to have a particularly strong grasp on
its main triumvirate of Marilyn, Victor and Callie, each of whom only allows a
sliver of self-centered yearning to show.

Many of the scenes don’t mesh with the established narrative
track, and when the film flashes forward from Purim’s production all the way past
its theatrical release, the most crucial timeframe of awards season jockeying —
and certainly the richest for untapped satire — is abandoned. I guess it’s
easier to fall back on some of the familiar circumstances and environments that
For Your Consideration does (clueless
producers, frustrated writers, ethnic niche comedy), but it’s a lot less
refreshing and rewarding. (Warner Independent, PG-13, 86 minutes)