I’m So Excited
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics/Mongrel Media
Accomplished director Pedro Almodóvar makes his light-hearted return in I’m So Excited which focuses on the sex, lies, and betrayal of a pansexual group of men—three flight attendants and two pilots—whose plane suffers from non-functional landing gear.
What would a colourful assortment of Almodóvar characters do then? From crafting Valencia cocktails to Mile-High-Club memberships for all, no stone is left unturned.
Critics could tear apart the eclectic yet brief roles and their characterizations, deeming them flat, but credit must be awarded. Each character has been given a grandiose amount of colour for the small amount of screen time they share.
After all, we get to know many characters in under two hours. Take for instance the sleazy drug mule and his sleepwalking sex partner. Or Norma (Cecilia Roth), the damsel-in-distress-King-Kong-era-reminiscent character, who was spawned by the same tree that bore Lucille Bluth and Lindsay Lohan’s public enfant terrible persona.
By virtue of the less than round characterizations, we are given the chance to explore the character of all the priceless, hyperbolic personas of the incessantly circling plane.
Unlike Almodóvar darling Penelope Cruz’s starring role in 2006’s Volver, we see the versatile thespian take on a cameo in I’m So Excited. She plays an airport runway baggage handler giddily waving to her coworker Antonio Banderas.
In the midst of her enthusiastic waving, she runs over a fellow colleague. Almodóvar uses the scene to play with the realist device of modern technology and social media in film—the injured handler slowly says “I’m…bleeding…to death” as he tweets it on his phone.
Despite the inclusion of something as contemporary as Twitter, the English title of the film is a vintage throwback to the early ’80s eponymous hit, “I’m So Excited,” released by disco-pop girl group The Pointer Sisters. Its addition to the film can hardly be coincidental.
A line like “Give in this time and show me some affection” uttered in an expert lip-synch by Joserra (Javier Cámara) hints to the ongoing affair between himself and one of the two bisexual, closeted pilots. The chorus’s ubiquitous “I’m about to lose control and I think I like it” epitomizes the cabin crew’s carefree sensibilities when faced with danger.
And that is how Almodóvar functions: he plucks actors from obscurity, and takes risks with his films. It fragments the audience, as those who enjoyed this piece may not have enjoyed his darker works, but still Almodóvar is giving us a piece of his soul with each film. I’m So Excited just so happens to have an abundance of his absurd, playful witticisms in what will be one of the most deliciously inappropriate films of the decade.
