Director: Christopher Guest
Cast: Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. I’m not sure I’ve ever mentioned this in these reviews, but my parents were local folk musicians growing up. I was well into my twenties before I realized most families didn’t generate dulcimer albums in the 90s. So, of all Guest’s movies, this one probably hits closer to home than most.
Did I Like It: No review of the film in the early months of 2026 would be complete without mentioning Catherine O’Hara. I spent a lot of my review for Home Alone (1990) singing the praises of her career in total, but it’s hard not to watch this film specifically and be blown away by her strengths as a dramatic actor. There are laughs-a-plenty with the New Main Street Singers and the organizaers of the concert, that she and Levy are allowed to exist in a sad love story that has already ended by the time we meet the characters. And before you think that the end (of the rainbow, if you will) is a better place for either Mitch (Levy) or Mickey (O’Hara), hear O’Hara’s plaintive wail, singing for her new husband’s (Jim Piddock) catheter company.
Even though it is only just over twenty years old now, there are moments that feel like they might not threaten to age unfortunately. If you read the final moment with Marta Shubb (Shearer) as “Oh, this person is a transgender woman. That, in and of itself is objectively hilarious.” It becomes a low-level Ace Ventura moment and might very well ruin whatever other pathos and actually good music the film has to offer. I tend to take it not on that front, but as a genuine human moment. Marta was there all along, and she’s just as a much of a member of the Folksman as she ever was. Maybe it’s not throoughly earned by the movie that preceded it*…
But at least it isn’t Ave Ventura.
*Is interest in skin care an indicator of being transgender? I’m honestly asking.