Best in Show

Christopher Guest, USA, 2000, 90 mins

While Spinal Tap explores the realms of the rock world, unknown to the mortals like us, Best in Show, explores, among other subjects, obsession… Are you obsessed? Stamps? Traffic Cones? Books? Or maybe films? Or are you obsessed with somebody? Well, some people are obsessed with other people, and some are obsessed with dogs.

Yes, these are the people that go to the Mayflower Dog Show in Philadelphia to show off their prize canines. There’s the neurotic yuppie couple with their beautiful, but depressed Weimaraner, Beatrice. The menswear salesman, his nymphomaniac wife and their Norwich Terrier, Winky. The fly-fishing shop owner (Guest) with his bloodhound Hubert. The delightful gay couple with one of their Shih-Tzus, Miss Agnes. And the trophy wife and hired handler with their two-time winner Standard Poodle, Rhapsody in White.

In this hilarious examination of a particularly dedicated body of people Guest manages to highlight the distances to which people will go to achieve their goals, and the forces that drive them. We’ve all met the characters, but seldom do we get the chance to delve this deep into their lives, and get a really good look. Guest manages to capture perfectly the essential feature of all mockumentaries–plausibility.

Now, who will win the trophy? Actually, who really cares? All of them are best in show!

Review by Sarah Stark
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2002