"Waiting for Guffman" (1996) - Movie Review

Comedy is best when the particular party generates by doing the material of dumb ness with sincerity and loyalty to it. The best humour is generated when it is not thought as a joke by that particular character. “Waiting for Guffman” is a mockumentary evoking those humour if at least for while. The promise it generates during the initial parts of the movie are of course great and impressive. The ways the characters and definitely the “characters” are introduced are extremely funny. This definitely brings up the expectation of further parts and fizzes out very early for this 84 minutes movie.

The whole fictionalized Blaine community in Missouri State gathers to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the town. They hail the great “talented” Corky St. Clair (Christopher Guest) who is going to give them the show about the Blaine history. The film deals comically on the audition and the journey to the final staging. The film equally concentrates on all the characters. The strength of the movie is the loyalty to which the actors/actresses stick to the concept of it. I am sure they would have had round of laughs after doing every serious enactment of the characters.

The problem with the film is that the loyalty of the mockumentary presentation in the plot was not followed in the later part of the movies. The camera work and the style remained with respect to the satirical filming but some where in the middle they really wanted a “plot”. The film expected to produce the eagerness and the disappointment of the characters to be humour. Unfortunately it becomes a dazzle on whether to take it as a serious dramatic scene or a humour frame. The politics in between the music teacher (Bob Balaban) and Corky could have been developed with serious “talent intricacies”, that the characters often expresses. It seemed they hurried up the later part to arrive to the main theme of the show (By the way, the show is enjoyable and in fact not funny at all).

The performances of Eugene Levy, Fred Whillard and Catherine O’Hara are enjoyable. Keeping aside the concept of satire over these people, there is some interesting serious factor with respect to the making. The environment of bringing the small town scenario is authentic and original. Having studied in a university town myself, I guess there is every chance that this would have happened out in the next small town nearby. The sincerity and faith in each people including the Mayor of the Blaine town showing towards this show are interesting funny. Also at some point of time bringing the close ness to the reality crosses its limit and makes this as a comedy tending to drama material, which threw the fun apart.

“Waiting for Guffman” is inventive and funny at times. It is even interesting at various initial frames but tends into a serious bland dramatic “trying to be funny” movie at the end.