Red, White, and Blaine—the fictional musical at the heart of Christopher Guest’s small-town mockumentary, Waiting for Guffman—isn’t really all that terrible. Don’t get me wrong: it’s hokey, blinkered, and performed with more enthusiasm than talent, but of how many community productions could you say the same thing? That’s the key to Guffman, which was written by Guest and Eugene Levy and directed by Guest: it never pushes beyond comic, familiar ribbing into outrageously exaggerated idiocy. Well, maybe Levy’s lazy-eye gag does that, but mostly the movie lets affection, not derision, lead the way. Guest also stars as Corky St. Clair, the Broadway “veteran” and reigning thespian of Blaine, Mo., who is tasked to write and direct an original musical celebrating the town on its 150th anniversary. Guest flirts with gay caricature but still manages to give Corky a delusional nobility; you might not be able to follow all his inspirational analogies, but you believe in him. When Corky’s feeble cast—made up of Levy’s enthusiastic dentist, Catherine O’Hara and Fred Willard’s overly confident travel-agent couple, and Parker Posey’s downtrodden Dairy Queen girl—actually pull off the relatively complicated dance numbers during the climactic performance, don’t be surprised to find yourself beaming with pride. As with most community theater, it’s not the aesthetics that ultimately matter, but the accomplishment.
