'Wind' might not blow you over, but you'll laugh
Christopher Guest's ensemble comedies sneak up on you, getting funnier with each re-watching. (Take this from someone who's watched the "Best in Show" DVD more times than she'd care to admit in print.)
Guest, along with co-writer Eugene Levy and a marvelous troupe of actors, has mastered a rather delicate style of comedy, based not on one-liners or sight gags but on a deep understanding of character. So it's important not to oversell "A Mighty Wind," the latest offering from Guest & Co. It's wonderfully funny, but in a quiet way; inspiring helpless giggles rather than knee-slapping and aisle-rolling. And, for the record, it's even better on a second viewing. I look forward to a third.
Guest's rich locale here is the world of folk music, and as with "Best in Show" and "Waiting for Guffman," he and Levy have organized the story around a central Big Event — in this case, a televised reunion concert of three folk acts. The Folksmen (Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer) are an agreeable trio who aren't quite as famous as they might have been, due to a distributor too cheap to punch holes in the center of their records.
The squeaky-clean New Main Street Singers (a nine-member "neuftet" headed by John Michael Higgins, Jane Lynch and Parker Posey) deliver such folksy favorites as "Potato's in the Paddy Wagon." And Mitch and Mickey (Levy, Catherine O'Hara), a long-estranged romantic duo, reunite for one last performance of their hit, "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow."
Levy and O'Hara (who've shown great chemistry before — they were the happy owners of the Norwich terrier in "Best in Show") achieve something magical here. Though Mickey is now ensconced in suburban comfort (she warbles songs for her husband's catheter business, Sure-Flo), and Mitch is struggling with depression and artistic stagnancy, their reunion is both funny and sweetly touching.
Mitch, who chokes out every word as if it's a painful effort (the spin he puts on the line "I would love to see Crabbetown in autumn" is a movie in itself), seems to gain strength just from looking at Mickey, and the actors build real tension as we find ourselves wondering (and caring) whether they will perform their once-traditional kiss.
They're the heart of the movie, but everyone gets a moment to shine. I was especially fond of Shearer's mellow-toned bass player, a bald fellow with a beard that snuggles under his chin (it's as if his face has a built-in bib) and a habit of chiming into conversations like the bottom note of a chord. Ed Begley Jr. is note-perfect as a Swedish television executive who keeps lapsing, inexplicably, into Yiddish. And Jennifer Coolidge brings her trademark smile of strained cluelessness to a tiny role.
"A Mighty Wind" isn't a perfect film — a few of the bits, such as Higgins and Lynch's "color religion," feel flat, and I desperately wanted more of Fred Willard's boorish, bellowing agent.
But it's 92 minutes of pleasure that flies by like the wind — even on a repeat viewing. And how often can you say that about a movie?
Moira Macdonald: mmacdonald@seattletimes.com
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