Review: Waiting for Guffman

The film, “Waiting for Guffman,” is a mockumentary that takes place in the fictional town of Blane, Missouri, whose residents have decided to put themselves on the map by celebrating their town’s 150^th anniversary in the form of a musical, honoring the town’s history. In order to create the show, they hire the local drama teacher, Corky St. Clair (Christopher Guest), a flamboyant New York playwright whose eccentric ideas have exiled him from the big apple’s stage. Corky then goes about gathering his cast, who include the local dentist (Eugene Levy), two married travel agents (Catherine O’Hara and Fred Willard), a taxidermist (Lewis Arquette), a young mechanic (Matt Keeslar), and a local Dairy Queen employee (Parker Posey). He also enlists the help of the local music director (Bob Balaban), who sets the bar for contrast with the other characters by playing the stiff, logical, and truly talented, “straight man.”

Eventually Corky ends up at odds with the town’s leaders, after asking for a hefty $50,000 extra to fund his play. After being denied this, he spirals childishly into a wacky depression. The cast learns about Corky’s fate and, ignoring the advice of the music director, decide to go to his aid. This forces Corky’s epiphany, that he has made a difference in the cast members lives, and he returns to finish his work.

In terms of pacing, the film seemed to start off a little too slow for me. The character’s introductions seemed to linger on a bit, forcing out intentionally awkward speech gags. However, once the show gets rolling it does manage to garner a few giggles. Guest does an excellent job of moving so that his character acts the way you could expect him to act, even when the character is literally “acting” as a character from a script. As a personal side note, one part of film’s ending was genuinely sad for me. The Dairy Queen waitress goes back to working for the restaurant. I’m not really bagging on anyone that works at Dairy Queen, but it saddens me that the character truly didn’t learn or change a damn thing about herself…which is tear jerking in a “Oh what a sad reality this is!” kind of way.