Emma Caulfield plays a fictionalized version of herself, using "Emma Caulfield's" desire for some career-advancing PR as her motive for trying to launch the acting career of another young woman, who appears to be mentally handicapped. This plot provides the means for making fun of the Hollywood community's do-gooder instinct, a target that's deserved a good swift quick for a long time.
Anyone who enjoys the movies made by Christopher Guest and his troupe (Waiting For Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind) will like Bandwagon. This movie uses the same approach as Guest's, in that each scene has a basic point it must get across, but beyond that everything is improvised by the actors. This requires smart, quick, empathetic performers to succeed and fortunately the entire cast meets that requirement. In the two main roles, Caulfield and Karri Bowman are especially good. (The latter also wrote the story and directed.)
I was fortunate enough to see this movie at the Newport Beach Film Festival. Caulfield and Bowman appeared to answer questions afterward, which is where I learned about how they went about making the movie's individual scenes. I've heard elsewhere that it wasn't accepted at the Sundance Festival, which probably makes it less likely that it will get distribution beyond some of the other film festivals. If we (and the movie) are lucky, it'll turn up on cable on IFC or The Sundance Channel eventually. I hope so because it deserves a wider audience.
