Waiting For Guffman

Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries are proving to be tragically susceptible to the law of diminishing returns, given the steep slope from This Is Spinal Tap to 2006’s For Your Consideration. In 1996’sWaiting For Guffman, Guest’s affectionate parody of community theater, the satire hadn’t yet gone stale, and Guest and company have their way with a fat target. A great cast and the genuine warmth in the third act redeem what might have otherwise been a callous, mean-spirited attack on small-town simpletons. As an easily rattled theater director trying to stage a musical production for the town’s sesquicentennial celebration, Guest leads a troupe of assorted misfits through funny song-and-dance numbers courtesy of Guest himself and his Spinal Tap partners, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. 

Updated 09/22/2009