Movie Reviews

Christopher Guest's Best in Show is my favourite of all of his various "mockumentaries" (This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, and A Mighty Wind). It takes place during the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show, and follows around. documentary style, a variety of different people as they prepare their beloved pets -- and more importantly, themselves -- for the big event.

There's no real story here. The dog show simply provides a backdrop to show off the quirkiness of the various characters, along with all of their own little dramas. And each one of the characters certainly is quirky, and definitely has some little (or big) drama occurring. Gerry Fleck (Eugene Levy), for example is a nerdy husband to a wife (Catherine O'Hara) who's slept with just about everyone in the state. Meg Swan (Parker Posey) and her husband Hamilton (Michael Hitchcock) have some serious issues with one another, but try to put on a happy facade for the sake of their dog, who they treat eerily as if it was their only child. And Sherri Ann Ward Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge -- always hilarious) is married -- obviously for money -- to a man old enough to be her grandfather, and may or may not have a lesbian interest in her hired dog-handler. And so on...

The great thing about Best in Show is how the characters are all really strange and funny, but not to be point of being too unrealistic or unsympathetic. They are all strange and funny characters, but they're not caricatures. The only person that really goes over the top is Fred Willard as Buck Laughlin, the "colour commentator" at the dog show. He's so ridiculously absurd and tactless (and very very funny) that he offers a good counterpoint to the other slightly more subdued characters.

A movie about a dog show might not sound like it would have a lot of potential for comedy, but Best in Show is hilarious.