Best in Show

Quick: How funny do you think a half-improvised mock documentary about the Mayflower Dog Show could be?

Okay, double that.

Add a little more. Now you're in the neighborhood.

That's right, folks, throw out all those preconceived notions you have regarding loosely structured comedies about competitive dog breeding. "Best in Show" is here to make them all look foolish. As a follow-up to the critically successful but commercially negligible "Waiting for Guffman," writers Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy and director Guest have given us a film which is similar in structure and cast to the earlier film but which also features a goodly number of extremely beautiful dogs. This fortuitous inclusion may give "Best in Show" wider appeal than "Waiting for Guffman," and it's all to the better. "Best in Show" takes a cast of extremely talented comedy actors and gives them space to do their thing as they see fit for ninety minutes, and the result is a fresh blast of comedy that hits you in the gut and doesn't stop until you've busted it laughing.

Many of you may remember a recent film called "Timecode" which was also partially improvised, and which was an unspeakably horrible pile of pretension that only a film student could love. "Best in Show" differs from "Timecode" in the following ways: everybody involved (including the director) knows what they are doing, every single actor in here improvises better than anyone in "Timecode" did, and (admittedly) comedy is easier to improvise than drama. (Plus the screen is not split into four quadrants in "Best of Show," nor is it shot with a nausea-inducing wavering digital camera. But you knew that.) The point is, improvisation for some actors and for some subjects poses no burden but rather presents an opportunity to show the range and depth of their comedic skill. Happily, every actor in "Best in Show" responds to the opportunity.

It seems churlish to list highlights among the performers when they all throw themselves into the project with such gusto, but nonetheless a few people deserve special mention. Guest himself plays Harlan Pepper, a fishing shop owner from "Pine Nut," NC whose special talent besides raising bloodhounds is ventriloquism. His sustained deadpan rambling about the esoterica of lures and his childhood habit of naming "all the nuts there was" manages to be somehow both charming and hilarious. Jane Lynch and Jennifer Coolidge are awesome as a dog handler and patron, respectively, who have not yet come to terms with their hot lesbian passion for each other. Lynch has a classic discussion of her own family structure which ends with the line "and so that worked really well for us, at least until my mom committed suicide in '81."

Two priceless seconds of silence follow.

Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, however, outshine even this competition. Levy has been left by a childhood accident with two literal left feet, but has nevertheless managed to wed O'Hara, who seems to meet someone she pre-maritally screwed everywhere she goes. O'Hara is much more comfortable with this than Levy is, and Levy's squirming reactions at the various lewd compliments paid to his wife (such as "I've banged a lot of waitresses, but you were the best") recall his priceless look of mortification when he caught his son humping the titular "American Pie" last summer. The only couple that strikes a sour note is Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock, who as a couple of high-strung lawyers resemble real jerks far too much to be funny.

But this is made up for in spades by the performance of Fred Willard as Buck Laughlin, the embodiment of every bad sports commentator you've ever endured while watching a San Diego sports team because there was nothing better to do. Willard is astonishingly fatuous, maintaining a jocular tone while flooding the sonic space with inappropriate comment after inappropriate comment, including a suggestion that Guest's bloodhound wear "a Sherlock Holmes hat and a pipe" and culminating in the soon-to-be-immortal midcompetition line, "You know, when you look out at these beautiful animals, it's hard to imagine that, in some countries, these dogs are eaten!"

As a director, Guest keeps everything moving at a brisk pace, and certainly looks to have chosen the best takes he could have. The dog show itself achieves astonishing verisimilitude; if it weren't for the announcers it would look quite real. And those beautiful animals almost steal the show: a gorgeous bloodhound for Guest, a regal Shih Tzu for John Michael Higgins and Michael McKean, an impeccable terrier for Levy and O'Hara, a magnificent specimen of a poodle for Lynch and Coolidge. These dogs alone may suffice to draw some in the door, and those lucky folks will be rewarded with one of the very funniest films of the new century. True, it has no larger social significance, but who cares when you're laughing this hard?

INSIDE THE MIND, SUCH AS IT IS, OF A MOVIE REVIEWER: THE CREATIVE PROCESS

True story: After pissing away my Friday night reading and watching"Joe's Apartment" (I had to for my satire class), I went to bed thinking, "I'll review 'Best in Show' tomorrow." I woke up at 6:30 this morning, thinking only one thing: "Hey, I thought of a lead for 'Best in Show'!" I immediately stepped over to the computer and typed the following blather. (I finished at 7:10, but waited until now to send it so I could copy-edit it without having just written it. Not that that guarantees that it doesn't have errors, but whatever.) Some people's subconsciouses work out their various father issues and whatever in dreams; my subconscious prefers to work on improvisational comedies (at least, when it has one; other times, I dream of cigars and cucumbers and the Washington Monument at a pencil convention). Hope you enjoy it, as I always do (I'm using both meanings in that ambiguous construction).

Comedies Home

Movie Reviews Home

Spam-O-Matic Home