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Making Arrangements
Best
in Show
and Waiting for Guffman both introduced Americans to
the idea that an ensemble cast can get together, play roles
in a subculture that no one outside it really understands,
and still make an entertaining movie out of it. Making
Arrangements, a little flower shop movie out of Oklahoma,
stands up well against the Christopher Guest opuses, and even
manages strong writing, where the British director manages
structured performances from great improvisers with the story
taking a back seat.
This manages
to combine the character-fueled feel of those films with a
sense of story-controlled mockumentary that the others can
lack.
You are
introduced to the characters inhabiting Flowers by Design,
the biggest and best flower shop in the city. Randy Colton,
who I remember from an old TGIFriday's commercial, plays the
owner Frank Robinson, and is the post that everything else
gets tied to. He's the non-Fred Willard announcer in Best
of Show, playing it straight (OK, not straight, but serious)
and airing his disgust with the trials his crew put each other
through.
The employees
fight, steal flowers from each other's arrangements in moments
of crisis, yell, and interact as brutally comedic as any film
not directed by Neil LaBute I've ever seen. The plans for
arrangements for a convention, a Holy Union, and a society
wedding, are all disrupted when a local god dies and the funeral
starts to pull flowers away from everyone else. The tension
grows, the grudges come out, and the hilarity erupts in backstabbing
and "Bitch Teeth."
The whole
team is solid, making with the funny in microcontext, and
even funnier when you look at the bigger picture. The angry
black designer (Jerome W. Stevenson) isn't hilarious on his
own terms, but paired against the perky sorority girl-type
(Stacy Farley) who keeps sniping his lilies, he's gold.
This isn't
even the b-story, and it made me laugh as hard as anything
in the film. The expected jokes of a spoiled brat not getting
the wedding she wanted were there, but played with exactly
enough elements as to not overwhelm the real story of the
flower shop employee trying to make it all work. The actors'
timing was always excellent, but the timing of the writing,
the rise, fall, and shift of plot points, is impeccable, adding
to every performance.
The star
of the film in my eyes is Rebecca McCauley. She plays the
youngest flower designer who has to deal with an overly picky
dinner party hostess and her desire for a centerpiece that's
"not too fluffy."
Perfect
at every turn, McCauley plays the obvious frustration in a
way that you notice, but that never pulls you away from the
film into a hate hole. She gets flowers from a regular customer,
and it never feels over-cute because she manages her character
so well.
What impressed
me more than anything was the fact that most filmmakers nowadays
would have chosen to shoot this in digital, arguably adding
to the documentary sense by giving it the look that most folks
expect from modern docs.
Instead,
director Melissa Scaramucci employed super16, which made me
think of the late 80s when everyone was shooting their docs
on 16. The look adds to the film, instead of making me search
every surface for jaggies and artifacts. I am a big fan of
digital filmmaking, but this was the right way to go.
From a
tight script to strong performances, this is the type of film
that festivals love, and also the type that never gets the
exposure deserved of such a superior production. I am out
to change that. I hardily recommend that you go out of your
way to find Making Arrangements.
Go to
www.makingarrangements.net
and look up dates in your area. Then, without question, GO
AND SEE THIS MOVIE!
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