For Your Consideration (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
For Your Consideration
Directed by Christopher Guest
Produced by Karen Murphy
Written by Christopher Guest
Eugene Levy
Starring Harry Shearer
Catherine O'Hara
Parker Posey
Christopher Guest
Michael McKean
Bob Balaban
Ricky Gervais
Jane Lynch
Eugene Levy
Fred Willard
Music by Christopher Guest
Eugene Levy
Distributed by Warner Independent Pictures
Release date(s) November 17, 2006
Language English
Preceded by A Mighty Wind (2003)
Official website
IMDb profile

For Your Consideration is the fourth feature film directed (and co-written) by Christopher Guest.

The film, titled with a phrase used in trade advertisements to promote films for awards such as the Academy Awards, revolves around three actors (played by Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, and Harry Shearer) learning their performances in the film Home for Purim, a drama set in the mid-1940s American South, who are generating award-season buzz.

Many of the cast return from This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind, including Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Fred Willard, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Coolidge, Jane Lynch, Ed Begley Jr., John Michael Higgins and Jim Piddock. Ricky Gervais, the co-creator of the British television series The Office, also appears, while John Krasinski and Sandra Oh make brief cameos. Whilst the dialogue is largely improvised by the actors as in Guest's earlier films, the format is a departure from the mockumentary style.

The film received its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2006.

Contents

O'Hara plays veteran actress Marilyn Hack who, despite having been in the industry for 30 years, is best known for playing a blind prostitute in a film from the late 1980s. Her co-star Victor Allen Miller (Shearer) is also an acting veteran who is known to the public as the hot-dog wearing mascot for a kosher line of frankfurters. Together they are cast as the patriarch and dying matriarch of a southern U.S. Jewish family in the 1940s.

Posey, as newcomer ingenue Callie Webb, plays their lesbian daughter who has come home along with her girlfriend (Rachael Harris). Rounding out the cast is Christopher Moynihan as actor Brian Chubb, who plays her brother who has returned home from the Navy. The family reunites in time to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim.

The film-within-a-film's plot centers around the daughter's confession of her lesbianism as her mother gets nearer to death. As the filming continues, Oscar buzz begins around all of the cast (with the exception of Chubb). Each of them begins obsessing about the award potential in their own way. Hack pretends not to care while secretly pining for the award. Miller begins to demand a higher salary and more prolific work. Webb breaks up with Chubb (her boyfriend), claiming he is not being supportive.

At this point studio executives butt in and force the writers to make script changes, feeling the film is "too Jewish". Ultimately the film is retitled Home for Thanksgiving. Despite the changes, the Oscar buzz intensifies to the point where Hack, Miller, and Webb are convinced they will be nominated for Academy Awards. They all begin to do major press appearances for the film. These are often embarrassing, both for the actors and the movie audience. In one scene, Miller appears on a hip-hop teen show called Chillaxin'. In an attempt to reflect her Oscar-worthy status, Hack gets breast implants and extensive plastic surgery to the point where her face is comically ecstatic.

Ultimately the only person nominated for an award is Chubb for Best Supporting Actor, who was the one person for whom there was no buzz at all. (He sleeps in on the morning of the announcement of the nominations.) Hack becomes an acting teacher, and Miller goes back to auditioning for food commercials. Webb revives her failed one-woman show No Penis Intended.

Almost ironically, Catherine O'Hara received awards attention for her portrayal of Marylin Hack in this film. She won the National Board of Review's Best Supporting Actress award and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in the category of Best Female Lead. Despite this buzz, O'Hara, just like the character she portrayed in the film, failed to garner an Academy Award nomination.

  • Catherine O'Hara drew rave reviews, some implying that she deserved an Academy Award nomination for her performance.[1][2]
  • Two references to an earlier film by Guest, Waiting For Guffman, are made: Ed Begley Jr's character is an apparently gay man who claims to have a wife, as is Guest's character in Guffman. Also, during Miss Webb's performance of No Penis Intended near the end, the pianist plays a brief homage to the song "Stool Boom" from Waiting For Guffman.

Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.