Entertainment
Official Competition is saved from potential navel-gazing by sparkling acting-Larushka Ivan-Zadeh-Entertainment – Metro
The new showbiz comedy is witty and intelligent.
The new showbiz comedy is witty and intelligent (Picture: Alamy Stock Photo)
Amazingly, Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz have never really co-starred in a film.
True, they’ve made two Pedro Almodóvar movies together, but barely shared a scene in them. Good news – these Spanish superstars have been saving a double whammy of sparkle for this irresistible showbiz comedy.
Cruz is Lola, a sadistic Palme d’Or-winning auteur, who has been charged with making an ‘important’ film with ‘the best actors’ that money can buy – by an 80-year-old billionaire – to secure his legacy.
She casts two very different men – Félix Rivero (Banderas) is a mainstream Hollywood star with a load of awards, while Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez) is a self-important thesp whose kingdom is the stage.
Lola’s idea is to generate ‘interesting tension’ between these rivals – she gets more than she bargained for.
We never see Lola’s finished film. Instead, we get a string of wacky rehearsals where Lola pulls stunts that include suspending a five-tonne rock over her nervous actors’ heads to create ‘truth’.
This is not one to miss if you’re after a light-hearted romp (Picture Alamy Stock Photo)
The film storyline could have come across as crass if it hadn’t been done so well (Picture: Alamy Stock Photo)
This movie-making industry satire is witty, intelligent and saved from potentially unbearable navel-gazing by the warmth, talent and sheer charismatic chemistry of Cruz and Banderas.
Essentially it’s an inspired riff on Sir Laurence Olivier’s famous comment to his Marathon Man co-star, Dustin Hoffman, after Hoffman revealed he’d stayed up for 72 hours so he could be in the same state his sleep-deprived character.
The chemistry between Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz is phenomenal (Picture: Alamy Stock Photo)
More: Scene
‘My dear boy,’ he said, ‘why don’t you just try acting?’
Out Friday in cinemas and on Curzon Home Cinema (15).
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