Official Competition will debut in theaters on June 21, 2022, and on demand on Aug. 2.
Official Competition asks if you exist so far within the stratosphere of your own rarefied bubble, is there any hope of seeing your own excess? Writer/directors Gastón Duprat & Mariano Cohn train their lens and wit on those whose cups runneth over so much, they have no concept of just how ridiculous and hollow they’ve become. Starting with millionaire pharma executive Humberto Suárez (José Luis Gómez), it uses his 80th birthday ennui as the absurd catalyst for his decision to finance a “great” film that will cement his legacy by making something that will outlive him with permanence. What ensues is a farcical vanity project that demands the kind of prestigious talent with egos just as grandiose as Suárez’s wallet. It’s cheeky, witty, and scathing in how it frames the apathy of the narcissist.
Appropriately, Official Competition opens with a sad clown painting that serves as subtext as text for the whole film. The painting is just one of a pile of gifts bestowed upon Suárez for his birthday, but he can’t be bothered with any of it as he contemplates his fleeting time left on this Earth. Pondering his nebulous legacy, Suárez hilariously decides, without any irony, that he wants to make something that lasts, like a bridge…. or a movie. That random thought then begets his beleaguered assistant to summon the eccentric Palme d'Or-winning director Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz) to Suárez’s home to talk about the Nobel Prize-winning book he wants made into a movie. He tells her that he paid a pretty penny for rights so she can adapt it into the kind of film people will be talking about for ages. Of course, he hasn’t read the book, nor does he care to. He’s got no interest in the specifics of how she adapts it, but he’ll happily task, and pay, her to cast the two greatest Spanish actors of this era, Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) and Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez), to play the warring brothers in the story.
What ensues is the expected catastrophe that comes from putting together a movie based on an old man’s whims instead of any actual passion, purpose, or investment. Cuevas is the only person in the film with any actual artistic investment, who wants to create a story that pushes boundaries. But she’s been saddled with two middle-aged men with their heads so far up their own asses that she has to spend the majority of her rehearsal time trying to break them of their worst impulses. Félix is the mega rich, playboy actor who goes through younger women like tissues and barely reads the script before cashing his check. Iván is his polar opposite. The ultra serious, venerable actor teaches the next generation of thespians with pretentious exercises and at home, practices rejecting awards given to him more moral posterity. The two are a handful but Cuevas is more than ready for their shenanigans.
A good portion of the film is watching the trio navigate a fraught rehearsal period where Cuevas unloads a series of escalating exercises to get them to drop their lazy, entrenched acting habits and embrace any flicker of authenticity they might still have inside. In turn, she drives the pair nuts with her obsessive notes on their performances, and her extremely weird experiments, like rehearsing an emotional scene while a boulder on a crane arm dangles over their heads. Cruz, Banderas, and Martínez are equal parts maddening and hilarious as their artistic selves batter against one another again and again. And just when you start to question if any of these people have any artistic acumen whatsoever, Duprat and Cohn give them opportunities to play out a scene seriously, and you’re dazzled by the chops of all three actors to shift gears and sell actual sincerity and skill amongst the creative chaos.
Official Competition also works well as a film within a film that mocks the excesses and petulance of the coddled artist. Felix is constantly late and has no patience for crafting backstories or getting precious about summoning real emotion to portray a scene. And Ivan is the consummate, fussy preparer who can’t cry on demand because it’s not coming from an authentic place, and he won’t fly First Class because it's classist. The two are a churning soup of actorly cliches that are entirely based in truth, which is why they never devolve into cartoons. In fact, as the tri-upmanship amongst the three just gets more fraught, they power a subtle shift in tone that ultimately propels the third act into some unexpected places. The humor wanes, especially for Cuevas, as her patience wears thin and her artistic enthusiasm is stomped on by Felix, Ivan, and even Humberto’s recalcitrant personalities. Their inability to see anything past their insatiable desires strips the film back to its foundation and the narcissism that birthed it and fed it.
For those who enjoy cinema about making cinema, Official Competition is a fine addition to the list. Cruz, Banderas, and Martínez are masterful in turning the worst artistic personalities into characters worth satirizing and enjoying for their worst inclinations. But they also add that extra layer of reality that helps pay off the core theme of the movie, which is exposing how easy it is for the lauded and the “special” to use their fame and wealth to their utter advantage without really caring about what it truly costs in the end.
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