Director: Christopher Guest
Cast: Jennifer Coolidge, Christopher Guest, John Michael Higgins, Michael Hitchcock
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.
Did I Like It: Are the films of Christopher Guest “ha-ha” funny (a joke delivery system), or “oh no” funny (designed to make one feel uncomfortable to the point where laughter is the only response remaining)? I’m tempted to say the latter, and that’s not a criticism. “Ha-ha” funny can fade once you know where the punchlines are. Even if your memory fades and you revist the film after some years, the memory never fully goes away. “Oh no” funny may turn some people off*, but when you re-visit a film like this after some time, the feelings of pity, contempt, and empathy that made you initially laugh all those years ago can be just as potent now.
Finding anything important almost invariably looks a little bit like madness to an outside observer, so we can look at the human contestants of the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show with a little bit of judgment, but just as the “oh no” starts to subside, the viewer who is engaging with the film will start to see themselves in the characters, even if they don’t own of show dogs.
There’s a certain modular quality to the film, and I almost start to see the seams where hours upon hours of takes pieces together to forge something resembling a narrative. That might take away from total enjoyment of the film, but I think it exemplifies just why the improv-only format is the best way to make a mockumentary with any kind of verisimilitude.
Maybe that’s actually why people keep telling me that can’t stand to watch The Office.
*There are apparently a vast army of people out there who won’t watch The Office for this same reason, and they’ve all committed to the obligation to let me know about it.