114 minutes; R
Critic’s Grade: A-
In Spanish, with English subtitles
For film buffs, movies about moviemaking can be hard to resist. And they’re frequently a cut above movies concerning uh, subjects that aren’t inside baseball: “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” “The Artist,” “Tropic Thunder,” “Living in Oblivion,” “The Stunt Man” and “8 1/2” are among the standouts in a sub-genre that dates back to “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Sunset Boulevard” and beyond.
Do those movies frequently succeed because their screenwriters are writing about what they know? Or is there something inherently dramatic and/or comic about the strivings of grown adults taking themselves far too seriously in their efforts to concoct the kind of dream palaces ultimately designed simply to turn producers’ fantasies into phat box-office returns?
Regardless of the exact formula — nobody knows anything, according to the old Hollywood saw — Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat, the screenwriters and co-directors of “Official Selection,” have managed to spin behind-the-scenes movie action into something akin to comedy gold. The characters brought to life by Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas are among the funniest creations that anyone has brought to the big screen in a long while.
The title, of course, nominally referring to the status of a movie accepted into a film festival’s eligible-for-honors tier (as this one was, naturally, in Venice), works on multiple levels. Humberto (Jose Luis Gomez), a wealthy, aging businessman celebrating his 80th birthday at a party where a painting of a sad clown with a balloon hangs on a wall, doesn’t want to be remembered solely as “a billionaire with an obscene fortune, with no prestige.”
He decides to best the competition — all those other monied old men, presumably — by financing something lasting. How about a bridge? Better yet, a movie. The story doesn’t matter, he says. He just wants to secure the rights to a popular property and then sign up the most talented director and actors that money can buy.
Cut to Cruz as quirky, award-winning director Lola Cuevas, she of the frizzy, piled-high red hair, white jumpsuit and a pulverizing stare that’s as intense as her way of smoking cigarettes. So begins the real competition, starting with Lola’s power struggle with her two actors — handsome playboy box-office champ Felix (Banderas), who races around in sports cars with his blonde conquest of the week, and brooding, serious stage thespian Ivan (Oscar Martinez), prone to spending his off hours having deep conversations with his wife of nearly 3 decades or teaching aspiring young actors.
Holding a rigorous nine-day rehearsal, Lola uses unconventional methods to leverage the actors’ rivalry with one another in the course of telling the tale of a pair of feuding brothers. Felix and Ivan, naturally, tap into their boundless supply of testosterone, circling each other, snorting and stamping like a pair of old bulls or jealous ex-lovers to prove something to themselves, to Lola and to their viewing public. Fans of a certain beloved “Saturday Night Live” sketch may be thrilled to hear that someone utter the immortal line, “Quien es mas macho?”
The contrast between Felix and Ivan, and between the characters they play in the movie within the movie, is pure Screenwriting 101. And several of the twists, including one concerning an illness, and another concerning the fate of some precious belongings, could be seen coming from miles away. Maybe that’s part of the point: Movie pleasure is about fulfilling the audience’s expectations as much as it is about offering surprises, right?
Those occasionally predictable plot turns, though, hardly take away from the amusement of “Official Competition,” which may have benefited from a shorter running time. Banderas and Cruz, appearing together on screen for the first time, and Martinez, are loose and limber throughout, prancing around these oversized spaces and egging each other on, with pretty great results. They sink their acting chops into these juicy if sometimes cartoonish roles while simultaneously having too much fun. It’s infectious.
