# Best in Show (2000)

### reviewed by
Shannon Patrick Sullivan

    BEST IN SHOW (2000) / ***

Directed by Christopher Guest. Screenplay by Guest and Eugene Levy. Starring Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey. Running time: 90 minutes. Rated PG by the MFCB. Reviewed on December 4th, 2000.

    By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN

I'm a cat lover by nature. The only pets I've ever kept have been cats, and I have absolutely no interest in owning a dog. Sure, I like dogs in general (well, some dogs), and I can appreciate the pleasure that others derive from them. But I've never comprehended the more bizarre extremes that dog owners can sometimes go to: dressing them up, trimming them in bizarre patterns, that kind of thing. And I definitely don't understand dog shows.

Christopher Guest ("This Is Spinal Tap") seems to share my perplexity. His new mockumentary "Best In Show" is a delicious parody of the dog show, complete with eccentric competitors, bombastic hosts, and even idiosyncratic pets. It is not a scathing attack on dog shows -- the movie is too gentle and bemused for that -- but it certainly has a lot of fun at their expense.

Guest follows several dog owners as they make their way to the Mayflower Kennel Club's annual show in Philadelphia. None of them are entirely normal. There's Guest himself who portrays Harlan Pepper, the backwards proprietor of a backwoods fishing gear store. Harlan's mood seems perfectly matched by his faithful bloodhound, and it comes as little surprise that his world is comprised of very little beyond his dog and his store.

Michael Hitchcock and Parker Posey play Hamilton and Meg Swan, a couple whose pooch seems to have developed a severe case of depression. Meg thinks it's because the dog walked in on them having sex, but maybe it's because the two high-strung individuals are perpetually stuck in hypertense mode. (Tellingly, they first saw each other at Starbucks -- not the same Starbucks, of course, but two Starbuckses across the street from each other). One of the movie's best scenes has Posey, desperate for a toy to replace their dog's missing stuffed bee, entering a pet store and irrationally ranting against the clerk (Hiro Kanagawa) because, although he has several similar toys, he doesn't actually stock a plush bee. When Posey finally picks a toy at random, the clerk is in disbelief: she has successfully chosen the least bee-like toy in the store.

Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara are Gerry and Cookie Fleck, a pair of middle-aged losers. Gerry has two left feet -- literally -- while Cookie seems to be intimately familiar with virtually every man on the dog show circuit. The Flecks are completely obsessed with their dog, to the extent of even composing songs (really, really awful songs) in his honour.

Then there's Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins as homosexual twosome Stefan Vanderhoof and Scott Donlan. Scott is flamingly gay and loving it, while Stefan is more of a sophisticate. It's telling that, of all the couples in the movie, theirs is probably the most stable relationship. Scott's prance when walking their shih tzu around the convention floor is perfect: he's as much on display as the dog.

Jennifer Coolidge plays Sheri Ann Ward Cabot, the voluptuous wife of an aged and sickly millionaire. One early scene sees Sheri Ann painfully trying to provide examples of substance in their marriage. She ends up asserting that they share great conversation, and equally valuable "We could not talk or talk forever and still find things to not talk about," she explains. Sheri Ann is the owner of a toy poodle (surely the most nauseating canine in existence) which has won best in show at the Mayflower two years running, and is competing for a third win. Assisting Sheri Ann is professional trainer Christy Cummings (Jane Lynch), who seems as interested in Sheri Ann as she is in the dog itself.

Rounding out the principal cast are Fred Willard and Jim Piddock, who portray the television commentators for the dog show, Buck Laughlin and Trevor Beckwith. Buck is a loud, vapid man in the grand tradition of American football announcers; he obviously knows as much about dogs as he does quantum physics. Beckwith is his long-suffering sidekick, who desperately tries to steer Buck back on-topic when he starts rambling about dressing the dogs up in Sherlock Holmes outfits to improve their chances.

With the feel of something that has been at least partly improvised, "Best In Show" manages to maintain a spontaneous feel while still setting up a number of hilarious set pieces. Guest is equally adept at capturing smaller comedy moments, emphasising the strange habits and obsessions which are brought out during events like these. Consider the hotel manager (Ed Begley Jr) who offers a learned discourse on the topic of what cleaning agents are best for the variety of pet accidents he encounters. On its own, it's a dry but reasonable topic; put into the context of "Best In Show", its faint absurdity becomes evident.

"Best In Show" does lose its way somewhat around the middle of the film, as the comic potential of the characters on their own seems to near exhaustion. Fortunately, just as ennui starts to creep into the proceedings, we move from the preliminaries into the dog show itself, which revitalises the film. In particular, the introduction of the double act of Willard and Piddock is wonderful, and their commentary is amongst the picture's highlights.

Several of the actors also stand out, particularly Posey and Higgins, who attack their roles with great gusto. On the other hand, a couple of characters never quite seem to find their way; McKean's Stefan, for example, lives in the shadow of the outlandish Scott, and surprisingly Guest's own Harlan Pepper is a man who always seems to be building up to a punchline but never actually gets there.

All the same, there is a lot to recommend in "Best In Show". Given his success here, I'd love to see Guest tackle something which attracts similar levels of obsession and hysteria in the future. If Guest let loose at a dog show is this funny, I can only imagine the hilarity which would ensue should he train his sights on, say, a science-fiction convention...

Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan. Archived at The Popcorn Gallery, http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies/BestInShow.html

_______________________________________________________________________ / Shannon Patrick Sullivan | "We are all in the gutter, but some of us \ | shannon@mun.ca | are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde | \___________________________|__________________________________________/ | Popcorn Gallery Movie Reviews www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies.html | | Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time (Travel) /drwho.html |

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