Spinal Pooch

After lancing the worlds of dog shows, folk music and amateur dramatics in his recent work, writer/director and Spinal Tap co-creator Christopher Guest film turns his attention inwards for his latest film.

For Your Consideration focuses on the nature of filmmaking and, in particular, how the on-set perspective can change when the little movie you’re doing for scale suddenly appears to be an outside bet for the Oscars.

Guest’s familiarity with this world – one assumes he knows more about studio politics than, say, dog shows – gives For Your Consideration a sharp and archly-knowing edge, from Home For Purim, its brilliantly observed film within-a-film - a low-key period melodrama – to the gradual changes that affect its cast.

This is a bitingly funny satire and one that gives the normal Guest ensemble cast – Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Harry Shearer, Parker Posey, etc – a chance to really cut to the quick. The rivalry / support that defines on-set relationships, the luvviedom, the willingness to compromise, all come under scrutiny and are dissected with a scalpel-sharp wit.

O’Hara is particularly good as Marilyn Hack, the middle-aged jobbing actress who is long overdue a big break but who, when it comes, can’t handle it. Once the Oscar buzz starts circulating, she reinvents herself as a botoxed, short-skirted harpy leading to perhaps the film’s funniest moment when she – and her immobile facial features - lead an acting class.

If there’s a downside, it’s that For Your Consideration is 90-minutes of in-joke and it’s certainly debatable that your common-or-garden cinemagoer won’t pick up on every reference. There are still obvious pleasures to be found – notably Fred Willard and Jane Lynch and their absolutely spot-on pastiche of US entertainment report shows – but some of the subtleties are probably best enjoyed by those with more than a passing acquaintance to the industry. Or who’ve at least read Premiere magazine once in a while.