According to Christopher Guest, ‘Comedy is like music. You have to know the key and you have to find players with good chops.’ Curiously enough, music actually is comedy in his first feature since 2000’s Best in Show. Guest and his usual thespian cohorts once again demonstrate their subtle comedic chemistry in his new comedy about folk music, A Mighty Wind.
The film centers around a folk music concert that Jonathan Steinbloom (Bob Balaban) organizes in the memory of his legendary father and folk icon, Irving. The event reunites three long-disbanded folk groups: the Folksmen (Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer); the Main Street Singers, rechristened as the New Main Street Singers led by Terry and Laurie Bohner (John Michael Higgins and Jane Lynch); and Mitch and Mickey (Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara).
The musical satire territory is no new ground for Guest, best known for his role as Nigel Tufnel in 1984’s classic This is Spinal Tap. Like that film, A Mighty Wind focuses on not only each character’s own quirks and insecurities but also on the uncomfortable relationships between the musicians.
Whereas the tension in This is Spinal Tap is the threat of the band’s disintegration through the disagreement between Guest’s Tufnel and McKean’s David St. Hubbins, the difficulty here lies in the band’s difficulty in successfully reinvigorating itself. The actors’ chemistry shines through, as the band slowly realize its current musical irrelevance and continually disagrees over the minor intangibles of its music.
The relationship between Terry and Laurie Bohner of the New Main Street Singers also entertains. Their personal principles center around the belief that God lives through colors and color coordination is a means of achieving divine awareness. Naturally, this viewpoint, as well as the Bohners’ almost paganistic ceremonies, unsettles the new recruits of the band.
The most touching and well-developed relationship, though, is that between O’Hara and Levy, who also co-wrote the film. As Mitch, Levy deftly plays a folk singer still coming to terms with the decades-old love he has for Mickey, his former singing partner who is now married to a nerdy catheter salesman. In the film, a folk music historian reveals that Mitch had been institutionalized since the late 70s. Levy’s anxiety and restrained emotional longing plays nicely off of O’Hara’s reticence and concern for his mental health. The film’s climax arrives when Levy is able to conquer his demons through reliving his past onstage during a duet with O’Hara of the duos biggest hit. After relearning his old songs in two weeks, he comes to terms with his life and rediscovers the joy that music brings him.
While the film doesn’t maintain quite as much plot momentum as previous Guest films Waiting for Guffman and Best In Show, its performances carry it along. Additionally, every performer steals at least one scene. The mere sight of New Main Street Singers’ manager Mike LaFontaine (Fred Willard) and his blond-spiked haircut causes immediate laughter, even before his hilarious monologue recalling his own has-been fame. The emotional hysteria of mourning daughter Naiomi Steinbloom (Deborah Theaker) electrifies the screen during her short appearance. The leveling of emotionally insecure, well-developed characters with brief, one-note slapstick performers is a hallmark of Christopher Guest’s films.
Truly, this film is a Wind that doesn’t blow.