Imagine Almodovar teaming with William Goldman and filming Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie did I Tell? and you have an inkling of the delights, tone and tenure of OFFICIAL COMPETITION (Competencia oficial).
When a billionaire entrepreneur impulsively decides to create an iconic movie, he demands the best. Renowned filmmaker Lola Cuevas is recruited to mastermind this ambitious endeavour. She hires two actors with massive talent but even bigger egos: Hollywood heartthrob Félix Rivero and radical theatre actor Iván Torres. Both are legends, but not exactly best friends, for reasons that become more and more revealing as the peeling of this picture unravels.
Through a series of increasingly eccentric rehearsal requirements set by Lola, Félix and Iván must confront not only each other, but also their own legacies, their pomposity and preening, creating a last man standing scenario when the cameras finally start rolling.
OFFICIAL COMPETITION basks in the calamitous wonder of how movies ever get made at all. The bullshit piles so high, you need to grow wings to stay above it, and Lola soars well above the chaos of machismo and its inherent insecurity. Indeed, she exploits it, for artistic integrity.
Hilariously honest, frankly funny, and comprehensively comedic, writer directors Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat have cooked up a behind the scenes sensation with a wicked sense of the ridiculous.
Alternating between the hysterical, the biting, the humiliating and the wise, OFFICIAL COMPETITION is worthy of an Almodovar comparison, and the star cast are an absolute blast to watch.
OFFICIAL COMPETITION has Penélope Cruz as the fearless and fearsome filmmaker, a mistress manipulator behind the cameras sporting a mass of Medusa curls and a ferocious work ethic. This is Cruz’s third film release this year, following The 355 and Parallel Mothers. Her excellence and sheer star power continue to shine here.
Antonio Banderas is splendid as the narcissistic Felix and Oscar Martínez equally so as the pretentious Iván.
OFFICIAL COMPETITION is an ingenious game, an ice cool behind-the-scenes satire of movie making that is simply unmissable.