Mark Reviews Movies: OFFICIAL COMPETITION

Official Competition, IFC Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 16, 2022

One act of ego begets so many others in Official Competition, an incisive and layered comedy about the making of a movie. The premise may be familiar and simple, but the filmmakers dig so deeply into the personalities and conflicts on display that the material feels unique and almost as richly complex as directors Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat clearly believe it to be.

In terms of the jokes, the film certainly is rich and complex. There's one gag here, for example, that's set up within the first 15 minutes or so, but it's not until the punch line arrives—at the very height of the battle between two of the story's bigger personalities and the very nadir of the consequences of their petty ways of thinking—that we're even aware the screenplay (written by the directors and Andrés Duprat), the staging, and the camera position have prepared us for the joke. That gag, by the way, comes in the story's final scene before its epilogue, just so one gets an idea of considered and planned the comedy is in this film.

It all begins so simply, too. A wealthy business tycoon (played by José Luis Gómez) in Madrid has turned 80 years old. While he seems to have it all (The piles upon piles of birthday presents certainly make it appear that way, as does his view from a tall floor of a skyscraper, where he looks out with quiet power), the man knows he is without much of a legacy. He's a millionaire, yes, but that's all people think when they think of him.

He wants his name attached to something that will last. A bridge that could be of use to and benefit society might be good, but a movie—a great movie, no less, with his name attached as the producer—would be even better.

That's the first and, admittedly, most grandiose act of egotism in this story, but it's definitely not the last or the most intricately observed. The magnate's plan is to buy the rights to a celebrated book (which he hasn't read and has no plans to read, of course), hire the most acclaimed director, and obtain the best actors available for the project. The book in question won the Nobel Prize, so "It has to be good," the millionaire half-asks director Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz), whose résumé reads like a cliché of artistic success.

She's an intriguing one, to be sure, and with the reddish curly hair on the top of her head and the eccentric outfits she adorns, she does seem like a joke at first. Of the three major performances here, Cruz's might be the most grounded, though, and there's definitely a joke in how this apparent weirdo ends up looking perfectly normal when compared to the two men in her immediate vicinity.

They are Félix Rivero and Iván Torres, whom Lola believes are the best fits for the lead roles. The former is an international movie star, and the latter is an esteemed "master of acting," who isn't nearly as famous.

In a bit of casting that is also a perfect fit for these characters, international movie star Antonio Banderas plays Félix, while Oscar Martínez, the Argentine actor whose work hasn't approached the type of international cross-over as his co-stars, plays Iván. That's a layer of self-reference we can't miss, and it's fascinating how much our recognition or ignorance of the two actors defines who these characters are.

That also means the filmmakers can jump right into the scenario, which follows Lola overseeing rehearsals for the movie the team is about to shoot, and the comedy, which revolves around the constant bickering and resentment and acts of blatant or not-so-hidden ego on display. Félix admires his co-star but starts to become irritated by Iván's process (The movie star has the acting philosophy of saying the lines while not bumping into the furniture). Iván makes it little secret that he looks down on his co-star's very existence as an actor—or someone who does whatever Félix calls "acting," in his mind.

Beyond the casting, the screenplay does a couple of ingenious things to keep our focus on these characters and the escalating conflict, while also understanding how the planned movie-within-the-movie connects to what's happening in the making of it. Lola gives a succinct but detailed run-down of the novel's plot, so we know every scene the actors are going to rehearse before they happen. There's big omission to the director's synopsis, namely the book's ending, and that means it comes as a surprise when it happens during rehearsal, while also preventing us from jumping too far ahead on where the conflict between the actors might go.

Mainly, the story consists of those rehearsal sessions. Some of them are straightforward, which allows for the actors to dig at each other in subtle and blatant ways, while also giving Banderas and Martínez a showcase for their skills. In one scene, the former has to increase his performance of drunkenness on a numbered scale, and in the same one, the latter has to inject two words with a load of subtext (On a secondary level, Lola's distinct ways of directing her stars shows her abilities). Eventually, the two actors begin using their talent as a weapon against each other, and there's an admirable degree of self-deprecation in how both Banderas and Martínez dive into the insecurities and egos of these characters (Thinking of winning awards is one level, but imagine the egotism of practicing an award-rejection speech).

Other rehearsals are gimmicky. A very funny one involves Lola literalizing the weight of a scene by hanging a five-ton boulder over the actors, and another has the guys kissing a co-star amidst an array of microphones (those amplified smacks, licks, and moans)—before Lola shows them how it's actually done.

Some of this does get a little too self-involved (The final moments, for example, reach a bit too far for significance, when the whole resolution is too darkly ironic—and on a couple of levels—for such ambitions), but that's of little matter. Official Competition is a barbed examination of bloated self-esteem that takes a solid joke and runs with it in comically clever and smartly critical ways.

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