I did not want to follow the methodology of 2025 and continue writing only about the films of the recently deceased, but then March came up on me quickly and plans changed. I have been thinking a lot about Catherine O’Hara since she passed away, so it became inevitable that we would be going back over Best in Show (2000, dir. Christopher Guest) this month.
Televised dog shows get the faux behind the scenes treatment in Best in Show. We follow several entrants in the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show, including dogs trained and presented by Harlan Pepper (Guest), Cookie and Gerry Fleck (O’Hara and Eugene Levy), Stefan Vanderhoof and Scott Donlan (Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins), Hamilton and Meg Swan (Michael Hitchcock and Parker Posey), and Sherri Ann Cabot and Christy Cummings (Jennifer Coolidge and Jane Lynch). We get to see each dog/trainer combo in their homes and then coming together to Philadelphia for the show. Because it is documentary-style, much of the information is gathered through direct interviews with the characters. That is true until we get to the actual dog show and its predicably unpredictable conclusion – including an upset winner, a last-minute replacement handler, and hilarious commentary from Buck Laughlin (Fred Willard).
Best In Show is the second of a modern trilogy of documentary-style filmmaking from Guest – a style he learned from Rob Reiner on This Is Spinal Tap. It follows Waiting for Guffman (my favorite, but a little bit niche to anyone who does community theatre) and precedes A Mighty Wind (diminishing returns and a bloated cast made that one less successful though still charming). This is the Goldilocks entry in the trilogy as it its appeal is wide enough that you need not be a dog owner to appreciate the film and the characters are crazy enough to be interesting but not so far out there to not seem real.
The strength in this ensemble comedy is its cast. It feels unfair to single out any individual performance as they are uniformly great. Ask a hundred people their favorite performance and you will likely get ten different answers, all of them multiple times. Myself, I am partial to Higgins’ over the top effete Scott (“In my neighborhood, you wear an outfit like that, you better be a hotel doorman.”) and Posey’s manic Meg (“that’s a bear in a bee costume”). O’Hara shines as well as Cookie – a woman whose promiscuous past seems to catch up to her in every interaction with a man – much to the chagrin of her husband. As I reflect on her insanely brilliant career, two images pop into my head: her sitting abruptly upright on the plane in Home Alone when she realizes they left Kevin at home and her walking across the floor with her balky knee to greet her triumphant dog at the end of this film.
You could have a worse weekend than watching all three of the mockumentaries from Guest – assuming you do as I do and ignore For Your Consideration, which tinkered with the formula to disastrous results. If you do, end with Best in Show, because, as the title implies, it tops the list. If you have ever owned a dog, you will find it more personally rewarding, but if you simply enjoy laughing out loud, you will have a wonderful day.
FUN FACT – The hotel manager (Ed Begley Jr.), in discussing how to prep a hotel for hosting so many animals, tells a tale of a rock band that he refuses to name doing great damage to the room, noting “Apparently they were not aware there was a toilet IN the room.” It is largely assumed this band was the fictional Spinal Tap.
Just Watch says that Best in Show is currently streaming on Netflix and HBOMax (though it leaves that service soon). It is available for rent/purchase on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and many other services.
As a reminder, here is the original post that details the scores and weighting system.