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OFFICIAL COMPETITION
**** An 80-year-old billionaire decides to ensure his legacy by financing the creation of an epic film about…anything. He hires eccentric filmmaker Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz), whose idea to adapt a Nobel Prize-winning novel called Rivalry sets the stage for Official Competition, a satirical adventure from Argentine filmmakers Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn. The film revolves around Lola’s collaboration with movie star Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) and revered elder theater actor Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez), who are cast in her film as rival siblings. Félix and Iván engage in a strange series of acting exercises (which include suspending a boulder over the actors’ heads as they rehearse), their egos creating comedic friction as Lola cleverly manipulates them. Cohn and Duprat, who wrote the script with Duprat’s brother Andrés, employ precise symmetry and over-the-shoulder shots in conversations to draw the audience in, while using deliberately vapid visuals to enhance the characters’ isolation. The result? A surreal environment that allows Lola, Félix and Iván to gradually fade away from anything resembling normal society, making Official Competition a fascinating and subtly hilarious film to watch. R. RAY GILL JR. Cinema 21.
CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH
** In 2020, then-23-year-old Cooper Raiff became an indie film presence overnight by writing, directing and starring in Shithouse, a college dramedy about a deeply earnest freshman hooking up, missing Mom and figuring himself out. In his follow-up, Raiff advances a nearly identical character and worldview into post-grad angst—this time with Dakota Johnson and Apple TV+ in his corner. Wayward Andrew (Raiff) finds himself emceeing bar mitzvahs, which leads to meeting Domino (Johnson) and her autistic daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt)—and becoming the former’s love interest and the latter’s babysitter. While there’s sentimentality to spare, the movie’s broad comedy—from bar mitzvah brawls to Andrew roasting his stepdad (Brad Garrett) to tweens being cajoled into dancing with each other—plays well. Yet Cha Cha Real Smooth pauses routinely for Andrew and Domino to discuss their character development (he’s young and dumb; she’s scared to be alone), almost as if the script’s goal were life-coaching. And without Shithouse’s college bubble, it’s transparent that Raiff has orchestrated a farfetched story so stunning women will gaze longingly at him and he can weep over his own dialogue. Cha Cha Real Smooth isn’t necessarily a sophomore slump, but it’s certainly an indicator that Raiff should evolve his onscreen persona and formula before they strain credulity (and amplify his vanity) any further. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Apple TV+.
MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU
** The biggest animated universe in movie history is seemingly on cruise control in Minions: The Rise of Gru—which is of minimal concern to its tiny stars, who seem to be in a universe of their own. A prequel to the Despicable Me trilogy, the film begins with 12-year-old future master of evil Gru (Steve Carrell) living in 1970s suburbia and longing to join the Vicious 6, an infamous supervillain group. The Vicious 6 have just ousted their leader, Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin), and they hold open tryouts for a collection of dubious wannabes in a sequence reminiscent of the audition scene from Mystery Men. That’s just one of many scenarios framed against a vivid ‘70s backdrop that’s glorious to gaze at—you feel as if you’re not just looking at another time, but another world. Unfortunately, the creativity ends with the animation. Gru spends the bulk of the film with the forgettable Wild Knuckles just waiting to be rescued, limiting his interactions with the riotous, gibberish-talking Minions, who fight not only to save Gru, but the movie. PG. RAY GILL JR. Academy, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Wunderland Milwaukie.
THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER
** Thor: Love and Thunder, the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, begins with a graceful homage to The Tree of Life and ends with a tear-jerking climax that could have been written by Nicholas Sparks. It’s a gratifyingly weird film, but it isn’t good—and it casts serious doubts on director Taika Waititi’s next assignment, a Star Wars feature. Chris Hemsworth is back as Thor, the god of thunder and goofy pre-battle speeches, and so is Natalie Portman, who plays Thor’s ex-girlfriend, Dr. Jane Foster. Since the breakup, she’s acquired some serious superpowers—handy, since a mopey and murderous chap named Gorr (Christian Bale) is rampaging through the cosmos. The problem with this plot is that it’s actually four plots. In the name of why-the-heck-not excess, Waititi has made a movie that is simultaneously a somber father-daughter drama, a cheery romantic comedy, an eye-assaulting action spectacle, and a disease-of-the-week weepie. A more deft director (Edgar Wright, perhaps) might have coaxed the movie’s disparate parts to cohere, but Waititi doesn’t care about coherence. As his tactless, trivializing portrayal of a character’s stage IV cancer diagnosis suggests, he’s gotten lost in a maze of indulgent and seemingly random storytelling impulses. Thor: Love and Thunder wants to be witty and it wants to be moving, but its quest to be both is so scattershot it fails to be either. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, City Center, Eastport, Fox Tower, Lake Theater, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Tigard.