OFFICIAL COMPETITION (B+) - Sometimes a movie is just effortless fun, no matter the point being made. Here, three fine actors pull an inside job on the film industry, portraying a celebrated director and two divergent actors rehearsing for a movie in this droll comedy.
Penelope Cruz -- with wild frizzy hair and a fuck-you attitude to match -- portrays Lola Cuevas, the ornery auteur who graces the project with her presence. She comes up with gradually more challenging scenarios to motivate her two lead actors -- the vain movie star Felix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) and the actor's actor of stage and classrooms, Ivan Torres (the veteran from Argentina, Oscar Martinez from "Wild Tales"). Lola's elaborate rehearsal set-ups -- having the men exchange lines under a giant boulder held up by a crane, or binding the men together with plastic wrap like mummies -- are meant to either puncture the men's inflated egos or to indulge her own, perhaps a combination of the two.
Cruz is perfectly deadpan throughout, barely able to tamp down Lola's disgust at even the slightest hint of the commodification of her art. Cruz is, somewhat ironically, the master performer in this ensemble, with her nihilistic humor. Banderas is a delight -- it's just fun to see a grizzled movie star like him or George Clooney winking at us while sending up their own pomposity. And Martinez finds just the right tone as sad-sack Ivan, who is as arrogant and judgmental as any of them.
The comedy thrums throughout at a low hum. There are more smiles than belly laughs. This is mature filmmaking. This comes from the team of Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat, who seem to be veterans of TV and documentaries mostly. They have developed a sharp idea and, with Cruz in charge, they pull it off delightfully.
THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT (B-minus) - OK, Nic Cage fans, here is your dream come true. Cage stars as a fictionalized version of himself -- his IMDb resume is intact, for example -- portraying a goofy everyman who happens to star in movies, and who gets to unexpectedly play action hero while traveling in Europe.
Desperate for work for financial reasons, Cage takes a $1 million non-movie gig in Mallorca, Spain, as a party guest to a rich guy who might be a bad guy. After that set-up, Cage becomes an unwilling tool of a couple of CIA agents (yawn), including one played by Tiffany Haddish (yet again), who are determined to solve a political kidnapping that they tie to the host, Javy, who is related to a lot of mobsters and fronts for them.
Javy is played to the hilt by Pedro Pascal (TV's "Narcos" and "The Good Wife"), defying expectations at every turn regarding the question of his motives. The movie works hard to seem effortlessly blithe about whether any of this incredibly ironic storytelling should be taken seriously. Cage is perfectly fine with everyone alternately trashing and idolizing his oeuvre. He offers a mix of giddiness and resignation -- tossing in a dual role as his younger, punker and much more optimistic alter ego Nicky (apparently de-aged through CGI), who acts as conscience and cheerleader.
Writer-director Tom Gormican has only one previous movie ("That Awkward Moment") and a TV show ("Ghosted") under his belt, but he exudes confidence in his breezy, slyly funny screenplay co-written with the more experienced Kevin Etten (who goes back to a stint with TV's "Desperate Housewives"). The first half, especially, is one big entertaining goof on Cage's reputation.
But things bog down in the second half, as this devolves into a cliched spoof of spycraft and myth of the movie star. It spends too much time on Cage's fictional family -- a precocious teen daughter and an ex-wife -- who just are not interesting enough to carry the B-story. It all limps to a predictable conclusion, having nearly eaten itself whole in a self-referential orgy of pop-culture quips.
Cage's more intense fans would probably appreciate this a whole lot more than I did. (A character is mocked for identifying Cage as the actor from "Moonstruck," which is exactly the anachronistic connection I would have made. In my defense, I have seen him in about a dozen movies, though only one ("Pig") since 2002's "Adaptation.") If you have the patience for the cheap hijinks of the second half, this is an amusing cinematic scoff.
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