The film charts the progress of a number of contenders hoping to have their dogs win the prestigious Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show. But while the backdrop is of the dog show, the show itself is a way of introducing a wonderful cross-section of social archetypes (and of course their dogs).

So we have the angst ridden yuppie couple, the gay couple, the lesbian couple, a Deep South 'simpleton' and the somewhat unlikely small town husband and wife, the former with literally two left feet! All of them come with their canine hopefuls. Christopher Guest and Michael McKean were the team behind the incomparable This is Spinal Tap - A Rockumentary and they have come together this time to produce a 'dogumentary'. While Tap was as near perfect as you can get, Best in Show while not quite in that class, still hits the spot.

The key to the film's success lies in the fact that while it is a merciless satire, Guest as director also manages to infuse a genuine affection for the subject matter and a real empathy with the protagonists. 'There has to be affection. If you feel we're being patronising, then you don't care and there's no movie and you are left with a glib, cynical series of events with no emotional basis', Guest commented in a recent interview. In Best in Show, the characters are all ruthlessly parodied and yet you end up rooting for them. While Best in Show is no Spinal Tap - Spinal had you rolling around on the floor in laughter - it will still have you laughing consistently and there are some genuine gems in this as well.

Like in Spinal Tap the funniest moments are the less obvious and more understated ones. In the mockumentary it's the straight up approach that makes the film click and in Best in Show, the actors play it perfectly - right from Ed Begley Jr. as the Hotel Manager to Guest himself as Harlan Pepper, the Southern hopeful with his bloodhound contender. In fact much of the dialogue is ad-libbed and improvised. Guest apparently shot some 60 hours in total with nothing more than a 15-page outline to guide him. The dialogue may not have the immortal moments of Spinal Tap but there are some extremely funny lines nevertheless. Look out for Guests monologue on how he drove his mother to distraction with his habit of naming nuts - 'macadamia was the one that really threw her'. But the real scene-stealer is the outrageously funny turn by Fred Willard as the very American TV presenter of the dog show. Best in Show is an intelligent, funny and quite delightful film.

Woody Allen on form would have been proud of this one. Don't miss it.