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#195 - Waiting for Guffman
Christopher Guest, 1996
Follows the members of a small-town theatre company as they put together a musical about the town's history in anticipation of a major New York theatre player coming to town and seeing it.
Despite citing This Is Spinal Tap as one of my favourite movies for about a decade now, this is the first time I've ever watched any of the mockumentaries directed by Tap alumnus Christopher Guest. Waiting for Guffman is as good a pick as any and it's not hard to see how far its own particular influence has reached - watching this portrayal of quirky inhabitants of a fictitious American small-town for the first time in 2015 is enough to remind one of Parks and Recreation. Even so, Waiting for Guffman carves out its own fairly unique place with Guest assembling a good handful of actors to build a film around. Much like the talented yet immature goofballs that made up Spinal Tap, the citizens of Blaine, Missouri are a good-hearted yet somewhat naive bunch to the point where you find yourself actively wanting to ignore the implications of the film's Beckett-inspired title and hope against hope that their attempt to put on a historical musical actually does work out.
With a film that depends heavily on naturalistic performances above all else, it helps that the actors can all fill out their roles reasonably. Guest makes a good protagonist that goes beyond the apparent "gay drama teacher" stereotype he's evidently reconstructing. The other characters tend not to have especially distinct character arcs, but they more than make up for it with a flair for bizarre dialogue and mannerisms. As with any worthwhile mockumentary film, it's kept nice and short, moving things along at a brisk enough pace to stop you getting bored. The musical numbers are convincingly amateurish without being genuinely bad, as are the characters themselves. Waiting for Guffman wasn't quite the instant classic I was hoping for, but it's a quick and entertaining little piece of work that's consistently amusing if not always laugh-out-loud. The characters are realised well enough by some capable performers and it's nice to see that, for all the characters' glaring flaws, it's at least nice to see that the film's overall sense of humour isn't rooted in meanness or spite.
Christopher Guest, 1996
Follows the members of a small-town theatre company as they put together a musical about the town's history in anticipation of a major New York theatre player coming to town and seeing it.
Despite citing This Is Spinal Tap as one of my favourite movies for about a decade now, this is the first time I've ever watched any of the mockumentaries directed by Tap alumnus Christopher Guest. Waiting for Guffman is as good a pick as any and it's not hard to see how far its own particular influence has reached - watching this portrayal of quirky inhabitants of a fictitious American small-town for the first time in 2015 is enough to remind one of Parks and Recreation. Even so, Waiting for Guffman carves out its own fairly unique place with Guest assembling a good handful of actors to build a film around. Much like the talented yet immature goofballs that made up Spinal Tap, the citizens of Blaine, Missouri are a good-hearted yet somewhat naive bunch to the point where you find yourself actively wanting to ignore the implications of the film's Beckett-inspired title and hope against hope that their attempt to put on a historical musical actually does work out.
With a film that depends heavily on naturalistic performances above all else, it helps that the actors can all fill out their roles reasonably. Guest makes a good protagonist that goes beyond the apparent "gay drama teacher" stereotype he's evidently reconstructing. The other characters tend not to have especially distinct character arcs, but they more than make up for it with a flair for bizarre dialogue and mannerisms. As with any worthwhile mockumentary film, it's kept nice and short, moving things along at a brisk enough pace to stop you getting bored. The musical numbers are convincingly amateurish without being genuinely bad, as are the characters themselves. Waiting for Guffman wasn't quite the instant classic I was hoping for, but it's a quick and entertaining little piece of work that's consistently amusing if not always laugh-out-loud. The characters are realised well enough by some capable performers and it's nice to see that, for all the characters' glaring flaws, it's at least nice to see that the film's overall sense of humour isn't rooted in meanness or spite.