SET! (Scott Gawlik, U.S.). 105 minutes. Rating: NNN
How much do you know about the world of competitive table-setting? Not a lot, I’m guessing, and Set! is here to correct that. Tablescaping is a very big deal for the people in Gawlik’s chirpy doc, which aims for the cheerful eccentricity of Christopher Guest’s beloved Best In Show, following a group of larger-than-life, hopelessly obsessive personalities as they prepare for the Orange County Fair.
The thing is, Gawlik doesn’t seem to understand that Guest’s movies work because his characters aren’t real. Some of the people we meet in Set! are genuine monsters, and it’s hard to forget that their behaviour affects the people around them. If you can stop yourself from thinking about that, you’ll probably enjoy the climax a lot more than I did. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself wishing the filmmaker had tried even a little to understand who these people really are, and what drives them.
Available to stream from April 29 at 10 am here
