Half Considered

Time to check out another film written and directed by Christopher Guest. For Your Consideration is his most recent (following Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind), but is a bit of a departure -- this one is not shot in documentary style. It's the story of a small, independent movie that somehow manages to capture some Oscar buzz during its production, and the crazed effect that has on the actors involved.

I think that of all the Christopher Guest films I've seen, this is the one that it feels like it has the most "story" to it. And it's a fairly interesting subject matter (to me, anyway) -- making movies. But unfortunately, this is also the weakest of all the films I mentioned.

What sounds good on paper ultimately just isn't funny in execution. There are still wild characters, inhabited brilliantly by Guest's staple troupe of actors, but this time the jokes just don't land very often. There are easily recognizable truths in just how shallow people who make movies can be, but truth alone doesn't really lead to "funny" in this case.

As I said, there is arguably more of a story at work here than in past Guest films, but it's a predictable one. It's not hard to see where it's all going. Predictability isn't automatically a bad thing, but without a few unexpected jokes to spice things up in an entirely expected plot, the movie just isn't that interesting.

More fine acting work, if you want to see that, but overall, I'd only rate For Your Consideration a C. If you haven't seen many of Christopher Guest's movies, I'd recommend starting with one of the other ones.