Movies

For Your Consideration

For those unfamiliar with Catherine O’Hara’s legendary facial gymnastics, it might seem like she was Botoxed to within an inch of her life for her role in the new film "For Your Consideration."

When the Canadian actress, playing faded B-list star Marilyn Hack, saunters onto a late-night talk-show set spilling out of a skin-tight minidress, she sports a puffy-lipped and vaguely feline visage that suggests O’Hara actually went the sad route of so many Hollywood actresses and seriously messed with her face.

In fact, it’s all due to her rubber-faced expressions _ and it’s just one of the many wonders of O’Hara’s performance in the latest film from Christopher Guest that skewers Hollywood awards season. The film opens Friday in selected theatres across Canada.

O’Hara’s Hack is an insecure and socially paralyzed has-been when she signs on to star in the film "Home for Purim," a 1940s period piece centred on a southern U.S. family coming together to celebrate a Jewish holiday.

The corny movie-within-the-movie features Hack as the family matriarch, a part she plays with a permanently arched brow. Suddenly, and inexplicably, Hack becomes the subject of Oscar buzz based on a comment someone posts on the Internet (an occasion that prompts "Home for Purim’s" dim-witted publicist to ask: "The Internets? Is that the one with the e-mail?")

Soon enough, Hack’s ego careens out of control. The scene where the newly minted A-lister hits the late-night talk-show circuit is the most hilarious moment in a film that, despite O’Hara’s heroics, is disappointingly uneven.

"For Your Consideration" is studded with many of the same faces who have populated Guest’s other films, including "Waiting for Guffman," "A Mighty Wind" and "Best in Show."

Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge, Eugene Levy, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Parker Posey are among those hamming it up in the film. Willard is particularly adept, playing a bone-headed and soulless host of an "Entertainment Tonight"-type show who takes great delight in kicking the stars when they’re down.

But the film falls flat in places, particularly the scenes involving the filming of "Home for Purim." It stretches credibility to suppose that any film so atrocious would be in the running for any kind of award. "Waiting for Guffman" worked because the play being staged during the film was bad, and the audience wasn’t expected to believe it was good. Perhaps departing from his usual "mockumentary" format for a traditional narrative storyline caused problems for Guest.

Film junkies are well aware of the lore about stars like Annette Bening and Tom Cruise, apparently bitter about their failure to walk home with trophies on Oscar night. Guest might have been smarter to keep the scenes from "Home for Purim" mercifully brief so the audience could imagine it was worthy of all the Oscar attention, and focus instead on the egos of its stars _ a satire that would have been all-too-believable yet funny at the same time.