Mariano Cohn & Gastón Duprat’s ‘Official Competition’ Is A Crowd-Pleasing Comedy That Skewers Film-World Pretensions [Venice Review]

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.Read More: Venice Film Festival 2021 Preview: 12 Must-See Films To WatchOf the many gifts given to pharmaceutical millionaire Humberto Suarez (José Luis Gómez) on his 80th birthday, the most striking is an existential crisis.Continue reading Mariano Cohn & Gastón Duprat’s ‘Official Competition’ Is A Crowd-Pleasing Comedy That Skewers Film-World Pretensions [Venice Review] at The Playlist.

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