Delayed Reaction: Waiting for Guffman

Premise: A town puts on a play for the celebration of their sesquicentennial.

 

I wish I liked the Christopher Guest style of heavily-improvised comedy better. I like This Is Spinal Tap, but it's not the classic to me that it is for others. Same for Best in Show. I want to like that movie more than I actually do. I had a similar opinion of Waiting for Guffman. I mean. What's not to like about it? Look at that cast: Fred Willard, Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, and Eugene Levy (among many others) are some of the bests at what they do. They are excellent scene partners who know how to run with a bit. Throwing a local stage production of an original show is fertile ground for comedy.

 

I think what gets me, with Guffman in particular, is how much the movie feels like it's punching down. I feel like they are making fun of people who live in a small town, not these specific people in a small town. In Guest's other movies, the situations are pretty specific. To a large extent, it's people who walk into the situation and welcome it. It's people choosing to compete for a dog prize that means a lot to them. It's rock stars who get to be famous rock stars. In Waiting for Guffman, it's a Missouri local theater who think they could actually get attention from Broadway. I think that's what really killed it for me. I think about something like Bowfinger, where the people are just as delusional. What makes that movie for me though is that regardless of how mistreated Steve Martin and company are at the premiere of their movie, they get that moment of overwhelming pride when they see their movie premiere on the big screen. Instead, in Guffman, the lasting image for me is when these delusional people can't get the Broadway producer to show up.

 

Look. the movie is decently funny. It's got really talented people doing good stuff. The ethos of the movie lost me though.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend