`Best in Show' offers pure bred laughter
By MATT CACCAMO
Scene Movie Critic
Most people have never been to a dog show or even taken the time to watch one on television late at night. After seeing "Best in Show," some may take a closer look at this odd "sport."
Christopher Guest's newest, surprisingly successful "mockumentary" is about a dog show and its quirky contestants. Following five different dogs and their owners from their hometowns to the Mayflower Kennel Club's dog show in Philadelphia, Guest introduces us to people we would never know and a world we would never see.
Through each set of dog owners, Guest satirizes a certain element of American society, making the film much more than just a look at dog shows. Guest himself plays Harlan Pepper, the only single dog owner in the film who brings his bloodhound from the woods of North Carolina to the City of Brotherly Love. Probably the best character in the film, Pepper's strong southern accent, and absurd obsession with nuts, pokes fun at backwoods America.
Guest uses Meg and Hamilton Swan (Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock) to examine upper-class yuppie society. These two gloat over the fact that they first met in Starbucks across the street from each other. Throughout the film, they worry about their dog's psychological health after having witnessed them having sex in compromising positions. They are caricatures of themselves, and the audience can't help but feel sorry for their dog.
Then there is a gay couple (played by John Michael Higgins and Michael McKean) who treat their twin Shih Tzus like the children they wish they had. Higgins character, in particular, is hilarious, making sexual innuendoes out of every situation.
Finally, there is the uneven, faltering husband-wife team who bring their dog, Winky, all the way from Florida for the big show. The wife, Cookie Fleck (Catherine O'Hara), is the type of woman who every guy seems to know. She's been around the block a few times, and isn't done at that. Her husband, Gerry (Eugene Levy), is the last person you would expect to find with her: he's homely, awkward and has two left feet — literally.
By far the funniest character in the film is the dog-show announcer, Buck Laughlin (Fred Willard). A mix between Bob Uecker and Dennis Miller, Laughlin knows as much about the shows as most Americans. That's why he's funny. He says everything everyone in the audience is just dying to say.
The genius of this film is in Guest's ability to take a seemingly uninteresting and potentially boring topic and make the audience care. As in his previous films ("This is Spinal Tap" and "Waiting for Guffman"), Guest creates laughs from everyday life. But that's expected. What he does, quite unexpectedly, is create an air of suspense and intensity around the actual dog show competition. By the close of the film, which coincides with the final competition at the show, you find yourself trying to guess the winner and actually caring about who finishes in what place.
The acting is solid for the purpose it serves. Guest forces his actors to fake a documentary form of conversation. This may sound easier than it actually is. Much of the script was improvised, revealing an even more impressive job done by the ensemble cast.
The only flaw here is that you sometimes catch yourself wondering whether or not it's supposed to be a fake documentary: Guest switches from documentary-style interview mode to a camera that is seemingly invisible to the characters.
Every once in a while a film will come along and surprise critics and audiences alike. "Best in Show" is just that kind of film. Dog-show watcher or not, it is not to be missed.
--4 out of 5 shamrocks
All Scene Stories for Thursday, November 2, 2000
