Starring: Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz, Oscar Martinez and Jose Luis Gomez
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Runtime: 114 mins. Reviewed in Jul 2022
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan
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This subtitled Spanish-Argentine film is advertised as a comedy-drama about two egoistical actors and an opinionated director, who are commissioned by a wealthy tycoon to make a movie at his request. The movie satirises art, wealth, pride, and movie-making.
The film is directed from a screenplay written by Gaston Duprat and Mariano Cohn (who both co-directed the film), and Andres Duprat. It is the story of an ageing, little-known, wealthy businessman, Humberto Suarez (Gomez), who wants to make a movie to establish his legacy for posterity; he thinks he has nothing of real significance for people to remember him by, and he wants his film to be especially well-liked. He hires a famous filmmaker ¬– Palme d’Or filmmaker, Lola Cuevas (Cruz) – and he gives her permission to hire whoever she likes. But Humberto also informs Cuevas that he wants the film he is paying for to be a truly great one.
Lola hires two well-known Spanish actors – Hollywood star Felix Rivero (Banderas) and ageing film actor Ivan Torres (Martinez). Both are talented, egotistical, and full of their own importance to the extent they find it hard to be friendly, or civil, to each other. Felix is urbane and sex-conscious, while Ivan is less good-looking, but wisely provocative. Lola, as director, has an ego to match the actors, and she intentionally asks her actors to perform ‘revealing’ versions of themselves for the film that she is directing.
The film is a satire that aims at ‘auteur’ filmmaking, characteristic of a movie made to distinctively highlight the significance and importance of a particular director – such as Alfred Hitchcock, Louis Bunuel, or Ingmar Bergman, whose movies are instantly recognisable for their style, appearance and artistic format. The movie pointedly examines film criticism as well as filmmaking to convey its messages across dramatic, comedy, surreal, and thriller scenarios.
Lola sets her actors a series of screen tests in which she knows they are likely to confront each other, and she uses films she knows each actor has made. The nature of her tests matches the egos of the actors she has chosen, and she provocatively asks the two actors to play ‘rivals’ in her movie, which engenders serious competition between them. The plot tells us that actors, investors and the business of filmmaking are using inside knowledge of famous films, directors and actors to illustrate the pretentiousness that exists for particular forms of filmmaking. The movie targets ego-driven vanity, dreams of self-enhancement, rivalry, and the personal pursuit of pride and glory.
The real-life actors in this movie (Cruz, Banderas and Martinez) have projected multiple skills over many years on the cinema screen for public scrutiny and enjoyment. All are well suited to engage in in-house comment and satire. Subtlety is not the name of the game in this film, however, and some satirical sketches in the film fail to achieve their intended goal, while others find their mark and hit hard. The film tackles issues such as: How real should good acting aim to be? Should the intent of a respected director ever be challenged? How much does the anticipated effect on an audience, shape what an artist tries to do on screen? The two lead actors look entirely comfortable in their self-parody, while Cruz satirises ‘director’ in attention-getting style.
This is a film that offers insightful comment by lampooning movie-making. Movie aficionados may see a lot to like in the film, but others will see a movie that is being made for the wrong reasons – which is exactly what this film is about. The film is full of ‘in-jokes’ that make it best suited to particular kinds of audiences – it is essentially about movies likely to be appreciated by those who are on the inside of the in-jokes it is offering. The movie is full of situationally-inspired scenarios which involve both actors and directors, and it delivers probing challenges to cinema aficionados, and their critics, in an unusual way.
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