Smiles all round

With 'A Mighty Wind' Christopher Guest takes a gentler look at his subject than in 2000's wickedly sharp 'Best in Show'.

The film follows three seminal 1960's folk music groups who reunite for a one-off show to commemorate the passing of their label boss. The Folksmen, a three piece with their fair share of internal strife, Mitch and Mickey, a duo once sharing their vision of love now barely sharing the same reality, and The Main Street Singers, an almost cult-like collective of disturbingly smiley players.

All the characterisations are spot on believable, perhaps the result of Guest's unusual scripting methods. Instead of set dialogue actors create extensive backgrounds for their characters then ad lib the majority of screen interactions.

Cast standouts are Eugene Levy (the dad in American Pie films) as drug and emotion damaged folk singer Mitch, and Michael McKean as the third member of The Folksmen whose cringing reaction to Harry Shearer's (the Simpsons) 'life change' is a joy to watch.

While 'A Mighty Wind' doesn't reach the wincing laughter levels of Guest's previous effort I had a smile on my face for the whole film. And really...what more can you ask for?