Review of Best in Show (2000) by Dawdlingpoet — 24 Nov 2021

I thought that this movie somehow reminded me of the recent hit sitcom Modern Family, what with the different characters with their often over the top personalities. The emphasis on the movie was more on the dog owners and their eccentricities compared to the actual dogs themselves, which probably got less screen time overall. The movie shows the hotel that featured in the movie (called The Taft Hotel) and how they prepare for the dog show (with the participants staying there overnight), which is apparently the time when the hotel is at their busiest of the year, which adds to the overall tone of the movie about how much the dog show means to the participants and the area.

The movie is more like a documentary type sitcom and so it seems more like a TV programme than a feature length movie, indeed many of the participants and also staff at the hotel are interviewed as if it were a documentary (although of course this is a fictional movie, a spoof). Relationship issues play a part, with Gerry Fleck (yes, the names of the participants are also a bit wild and wonderful, you could say) being quite uncomfortable with his wife Cookie who seems to continue to bump into old flames, considering he's quite a modest man (indeed he has his own comical attributes including literally two left feet) and she was clearly someone who alot of people held in their affections, put it that way and then there's also Meg and Hamilton Swan, who argue frequently and also the movie starts with them or/and their dog in therapy after a rather embarrassing incident.

Its worth mentioning that Jane Lynch is in this movie, playing Christy Cummings, the owner of the dog (a rather large poodle) who won the previous two years 'best in show' award. Jane is probably best known at the moment as Sue Sylvester in the musical drama Glee and again in this movie she is quite headstrong and pretty sure of success, though you'll have to watch the movie to see whether or not her attitude is warranted.

Another set of characters worth mentioning are the two show judges, one American who is the typical wise crack who says all the old play on word type jokes relating to certain dog breeds and so on and the other an English guy who tries to maintain dignity and explain more about the way the dog show works.

I don't think there's much more that can be said about the movie without giving much away but I thought it was quite interesting and amusing at points, though it may be more likely to make you cringe than anything else but it is quite entertaining. Some of the dogs reactions to situations and moreso to the behaviour of their owners at the show is quite comical and certainly says something. Being that me and my family owned a dog until December of last year and knowing how attached we were to her, I suppose I could relate to some of the characters and their clear love and belief in their dogs and how much they wanted them to win, although we never entered our dog into any such competitions. I don't particularly like the stereotype of owners being quite so fanatical, I don't think thats entirely fair but other than that, there's not much I can fault the movie on really, its quite quirky, amusing (rather than hilarious but it is certainly pretty funny) and overall pretty diverting and entertaining, though it does have more of a TV show type feel to it rather than a big feature film type feel to it.

Yes I'd recommend it I think, although its rather quirky and some might not enjoy it as much as others possibly. There perhaps isn't enough of the movie dedicated to the dogs themselves, be aware that this is more about the owners than the dogs although it is still pretty amusing.