The Big Picture

Directed by Christopher Guest, The Big Picture follows aspiring filmmaker Nick Chapman (Kevin Bacon) as he arrives in Hollywood and is almost immediately forced to sacrifice his ideals and morals. Filmmaker Guest, working from a script written with Michael Varhol and Michael McKean, delivers an often egregiously deliberate comedy that is, for the most part, entirely lacking in laughs, with the somewhat arms-length atmosphere perpetuated by a lack of believable protagonists and an excessively familiar storyline. (Nick’s character arc, which follows his rise and fall, seems to have emerged directly from a template for tales of this ilk.) There’s little doubt, then, that The Big Picture benefits from a smattering of compelling sequences (eg Nick sits through a meeting with several executives and is subjected to their mostly ridiculous ideas), and it’s clear, too, that the movie is at its best when focused on Nick’s struggles within the industry – although it’s equally apparent that the whole thing demonstrably runs out of steam as it enters its padded-out and rather uninvolving third act (which seems to consist mostly of scene after scene of Nick reconciling with figures he previously alienated). The end result is a mostly ineffective satire that generally feels like a short that’s been awkwardly expanded to feature length, and it’s fairly surprising that Guest, making his debut here, subsequently managed to carve out a solid career for himself behind the camera.

** out of ****