Film, or movie? It’s a zombified debate you can always count on shaking itself to life. An entry point for arguments about art and commerce filtered through a single semantic choice. It’s not always a bad faith starting point, even if it inevitably ends up at gatekeeping. I remember being a college sophomore a few classes into my film degree and embracing the finger-wagging evangelism of that one asshat in Goodwill Hunting (1997). I wanted so badly to sound intelligent. It’s not about intellect though. No, it’s really about a self-reflexive need to be taken seriously. If I argue that we should only use the word “film” for challenging and philosophical pieces, it means I’m better than anyone who would call Tokyo Story (1953) a “movie.” We fight about what to call things because we inherently want to feel superior, even to the detriment of what we love.
So goes the central ideology of Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s Official Competition. Elderly millionaire Humberto Suárez (José Luis Gómez) worries he won’t be remembered for anything other than being rich. After considering building a bridge, he decides the best way to secure a legacy is to fund an “art film.” Without any direction other than wanting to get the “best” people involved, he hires celebrated director Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz). Eccentric. Exacting. Possibly insane? No matter, Lola is a festival and arthouse sensation, so she will lead the way. For her part, Lola casts mainstream star Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) and critical “maestro” Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez) as leads. They will play dueling brothers, appearing on screen together for the first time. Across nine days of rehearsal in a secluded compound, the three battle about art, filmmaking, and the petty disagreements of fragile egos.
The film’s title is an immediate nod that Cohn and Duprat’s script, co-written with Andrés Duprat, wants to swing at the established hierarchy of judging a movie’s merits. Mushing the Cannes phrases “Official Selection” and “In Competition,” Official Competition clearly wants us to think about the festival. That’s even before a very thinly-veiled stand-in festival makes an appearance in the closing scenes. Cannes has long held a vaulted position in the industry. A place for taste making and launching careers when it deigns to elevate a new voice. Even so, critics have long noted Cannes’ penchant for excluding or elevating hostility towards filmmakers and attendees of color. While that angle is not literalized in Official Competition, the nods to the festival invoke a clear sense of criticism aimed at the exclusive and inhospitable system of judging filmmaking. It is, in short, a perfect backdrop for Lola, Félix, and Iván.
Official Competition‘s structure, that of rehearsal time, means Cruz, Banderas, and Martínez remain the center of the frame. Each makes a meal of their respective caricature. Cruz, supported by a sensational wardrobe and a jungle of frizzy red hair, plays Lola as a manic artist type. She has only made a handful of films, and “truly suffers” for each of them. Across from her, literally in many scenes, Banderas and Martínez have the challenge of playing actors seen as stark opposites while nonetheless sharing the same raging egotism. Félix is the people’s champion. Decorated with pop awards and massive box office hauls. Iván is the artiste, a man deep into a career shaped by eschewing the mainstream. Smash them all together and the sequence of hoops they put each other through during rehearsals is a collection of delicious satire.
Take, for instance, their first table read. Lola asks Félix and Iván to sit across from her at an over-long table in their massive marble and glass rehearsal room. The three have just finished arguing about the approach to their craft. Félix believes you should consider what’s on the page, while Iván swears you must consider the backstory. Tempers flared, but they’ve settled to read. That is until Lola opens her script to reveal a gauche collage of photos, scribbles, and possibly bloodstains inside her script binder. Once they begin, she asks Iván to re-read his first line over and over, frustrating him and amusing Félix. When she turns to Félix, he embraces faux modesty. A student overeager to please. That dynamic modulates and perverts as the film plays on, repositioning one of the three into antagonists at every turn. Everyone becomes a headache.
For their parts, Cohn and Duprat direct Official Competition in a way that centers the performances without growing stale. Working with editor Alberto del Campo, they find a syncopated rhythm for their series of close-ups during readings and rehearsals. It takes what could be a numbing back and forth and mirrors the unstable mood in the rooms. They also match their cast’s comedic chops with an eye for spot gags. A personal favorite comes when Lola insists they rehearse under a hanging boulder. The shot of Banderas and Martínez shriveling in chairs under a massive, suspended, stone is hilarious. It only grows from there as the camera girds Cruz’s unhinged performance and culminates in a simple but superbly executed visual punchline I won’t ruin. The experience offers a refreshing lack of directorial ego. They let the performances shine, and offer their own counternarrative to the Lola’s of the world.
Admittedly, Official Competition will work best for the cinema-obsessed crowd. Viewers who have no connection to Cannes or interest in the machinations of arthouse auteurs will be amused but possibly a little bored. All the same, I don’t count that against it at all. Every genre and release has an audience. Some of those audiences are tens of millions, and some are much smaller. Official Competition is catnip for the many who pour over industry reports and awards odds every year with the bonus of reminding us all to relax a little bit about it all. It is, believe it or not, alright simply to have some fun, and Official Competition fits that idea snugly into a sparkling and witty package.
Official Competition is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of IFC Films.
'Official Competition' (2022) skewers egomania through the lens of three self-absorbed artists trying to make a movie.
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GVN Rating 9
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Devin McGrath-Conwell holds a B.A. in Film / English from Middlebury College and is currently pursuing an MFA in Screenwriting from Emerson College. His obsessions include all things horror, David Lynch, the darkest of satires, and Billy Joel. Devin’s writing has also appeared in publications such as Filmhounds Magazine, Film Cred, Horror Homeroom, and Cinema Scholars.