'Official Competition': Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas Comedy a Delight

There are shades of Ruben Ostlund’s “The Square” if it were remade to target the film world, in Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s crowd-pleasing Spanish comedy “Official Competition” starring Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas. Controlled pacing, visual punchlines, and an insider knowledge of the varied pretensions within filmmaking make this a consistently amusing – if never downright hilarious – vehicle for the well-honed comic sides of two of Spain’s most famous exports.

Of the many gifts given to pharmaceutical millionaire Humberto Suarez (José Luis Gómez) on his 80th birthday, the most striking is an existential crisis. Concerned with a lack of legacy, he decides to fund a great movie with no vision besides hiring the best people for the job. This leads him to the door of arthouse godhead Lola Cuevas, whose fictional credits include “The Inverted Rain,” “Void” and “Haze.” Styled, at Cruz’s request, with a mop of red curls modeled on Alma Har’el, she represents the kind of director who is driven by the search for truth and who will get her actors there by any means necessary. Lola wants to adapt a Nobel Prize-winning book called “Rivalry” about two warring brothers and casts popular actor Félix Rivero (Banderas) opposite serious craftsman Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez) in the roles. As they rehearse for the film in one of Humberto’s cavernous and empty conference centers, life imitates art and the conflict between Félix and Iván starts at a low hum, building to a roar.

It is a credit to Cohn and Duprat’s skillful direction that the uniformly excellent cast is on message regarding the precise nature of this comedy. It is calibrated to be deadpan but not sardonic, and ridiculous without being farcical. Lola’s methods are what can safely be called “unconventional.” She hires a crane to suspend a rock over the two men as they rehearse a scene where they must respond to a death, and Félix steals worried glances at the rock creaking ominously above them. “You’re terrified?” says Lola, “Use it”! Cruz – so captivating in Pedro Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers,” which also just premiered at the Venice Film Festival – demonstrates the extent of her craft, making Lola extremely funny without ever turning her into a caricature. Several sensual lesbian scenes are spritzed lightly across the film, and Cruz nails what could be throwaway moments to rock this side of Lola with gusto.

Banderas has been a game and fleet-footed performer throughout his career (fond memories abound of his devil-may-care Zorro), and he has an absolute ball here as a playboy with almost as many awards as he has dietary requirements as he has women on rotation. This makes him the diametric opposite of Iván, a serious man with contempt for popular audiences who has been married to the same woman for 28 years. Martínez is perfectly stuffy and pompous. The script, written by the two directors and additional screenwriter Andrés Duprat, takes an equal-opportunity approach to skewering each of the men, having endless fun by blending rehearsal techniques with real dynamics. Lola has them insult each other as an exercise in building brotherly tension, yet the actors keep going long after she calls stop. Lola’s techniques include bold innovations that it would be a shame to spoil; one is accompanied by a crunching sound that once heard is never forgotten.

A sense of humor is woven into the aesthetic sensibility of the film, and hat tips go to Sara Natividad for the art direction and Arnau Valls Colomer for the cinematography. The fact that rehearsals take place in one of Humberto’s crisp conference centers never stops being funny via its sheer contrast with the arty activities happening within. The space is polished clean, making the eccentric visuals pop as if they are tableaux behind red rope in a museum. Each character is also costumed to perfection by Wanda Morales; Lola’s outfits are every inch the fashionable lesbian artist. Detail is what makes “Official Competition” a joy to behold. From film festival press conferences to deadly serious discussions about process to unquenchable rivalries, it hits the nail on the head again and again. Yet it also has a fondness for the characters it depicts, ridiculous as it knows them to be. There is a sense that they care about their work and that the world would be a poorer place without their efforts – a warmth that leaps out from the reaction shots that each actor is given in abundance. The stars of “Official Competition” have blood pumping through their veins – vim and vigor. Comparisons to “The Square” falter, as this is lighter fare with no acute social commentary to parse once the credits roll. Still, if you want to know what has been the funniest film at the Venice Film Festival, there is no competition. [B+/A-]

Follow along with our full coverage from the 2021 Venice Film Festival here.