Official Competition

An insider satire that will likely amuse audiences that are highly interested in acting and the filmmaking process that generates some amusing laughs, Official Competition is a clever parody of the absurdity and pretentiousness of the creative process, that balances caricature with existentialism. The results are sophisticated, with some repetition in the narrative but enough surprises that, despite being slightly overlong, it clocks in at just under 2 hours. The Argentinian filmmaker duo, Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn, co-wrote and directed the film. With the star power of leads Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz, these films are more likely to satisfy art-house and international film fans in Duprat and and Cohn’s widest release yet, and this film should get audiences into the art-house theater seats with its cast and word-of-mouth.

Taking a cue from other insider films such as The Player, Being John Malkovich, Birdman, Maps to the Stars, and, most recently, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Duprat and Cohn know the filmmaking world, pulling no punches in revealing how competitive and ego-driven actors and filmmakers can be, how their narcissism sucks all humility and life out of them, and how they pander to all the accolades and vanity for mainstream validation. While we has seen these ideas play out before in other fictional dramas and meta satires, the ideas are just as layered, and refreshing. The satire is very rich because of just how painfully real it feels.

The film begins with Humberto Suarez (Jose Luis Gomez), a wealthy businessman who, approaching his 80th birthday, feels like he’s missing something substantial in his life. Despite being very wealthy, he wants his name to live on and to be remembered for something other than just being wealthy. He ends up informing his assistant that he wants to invest in and produce a film. With no prior experience or knowledge of cinema, he ends up buying some of Spain’s great artists to assure the film’s critical reception in the hopes that a film he produces will live out his legacy.

In order to accomplish this, the story must be artistically and commercially successful as well, so Humberto ends up buying the rights of an award-winning and best-selling novel titled Rivalry and hires internationally renowned art-house director Lola Cuevas (Penelope Cruz) to write and direct the adaptation for the silver screen. As the story is about a sibling rivalry between two estranged brothers, Lola ends up casting Hollywood blockbuster actor Felix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) along with art-house and theater actor Ivan Torres (Oscar Martinez). She even pitches her adaptation to Humberto, who is basically a yes man for Lola’s uncompromised vision.

Interestingly enough, Humberto disappears in the film and only appears in a few other scenes as the film progresses. The story ends up becoming an exploration of Lola’s bold vision and maddening methods as she holds painful rehearsals between Felix and Ivan. She conducts bizarre exercises in the hopes of removing their egos and discovering emotional truths that reside within them, as the film is about humility and grace between two brothers. Such bizarre exercises include reading the script below a massive boulder that is hanging off a crane, to tying the men up in saran wrap as she places each of their awards (including her own Cannes Palme D’Or trophy) down a woodchipper, as both men plead in despair and disdain as their awards get damaged. We never see the film-within-film, and this film’s setting is all about the pre-production and rehearsal phase of Lola’s building a creative rapport with her two leads. It’s a film based primarily on acting, and her methods recall the maddening exercises of a filmmaker like Lars von Trier. If anything, Lola will remind you of a Spanish female Lars von Trier, especially in the way she holds press conferences, combating reporters with wry comments and contentious debates on their interpretations.

It’s a film that also invites into the psyche of an actor and the concept of acting, inevitably recalling Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman, which was also about an actor attempting to rebuild his career by adapting a novel, but on Broadway. The film becomes a clash of the egos between its three protagonists, each narcissistic in their own way, but each one is also very passionate and takes their art seriously. Their portrayals of all the characters alternate between caricature and authenticity.

Using amusing moments from eccentric, ego-driven artists and their self-importance is the easy part, though filmmakers Dupart and Cohn examine rehearsals, alternate interpretations, creative disputes, and other revelations. The chemistry between all three creative thespians works, and just about every moment ignites with fervor, humor, and dramatic momentum. The brilliant thing is how Dupart and Cohn balance out the satire with seriousness, unfolding with some mini-subplots off the rehearsals that all hold different approaches and tonal shifts—Lula’s side plot affair with a fellow actress has an absurdist quality to it; Felix’s subplot with his assistant and girlfriend feels the most satirical and self-centered; and the subplots involving Ivan lecturing to his acting students how the world needs fewer actors and more doctors or having sincere discussions with his wife feel the most genuine. None of these extraneous plots feel forced or tacked on.

As usual, Penelope Cruz does an impressive job of playing a film director. Though her Lola character is played in borderline caricature mode, occasionally teetering toward parody of a pretentious art-house director that is never subtle, it’s far from bland and proves just how versatile of an actress Cruz really is. Banderas is also natural as the arrogant actor trying to rebrand himself after years of Hollywood’s big studio blockbusters, and while it’s not a transcending role, he’s perfectly well-suited to the character. Oscar Martinez, as Felix’s rival both on and off the screen, exudes great tension and wit, delivering some very memorable scenes; the chemistry between each of these actors is hysterically witty and dramatically effective.

Dupart and Cohn’s wide decision in shooting these scenes with meticulous compositions and static shots pays off in showing the sterile side of the creative process between large-scale directors and ego-driven actors, and Arnau Valls-Colomer’s cinematography brings an artful eye to the shot compositions with its frequent use of static shots that give the film a sense of unease that amps up the tension in the darkly comic scenes. Official Competition is essentially about competition and cinematic rivalry when egos collide, and with that, it becomes an intriguing, brutally honest portrait of the maddening behind-the-scenes antics within the filmmaking world.