I'm So Excited
Director: Pedro Almadovar
Actors: Antonio de la Torre, Carlos Areces, Javier Caaamara, Lola Duenes
Release Date: Monday 30th November -0001
Running time: 90 minutes
Well, this isn't very good. The Spanish director has been hit and miss in recent years but to go from exploring the dark reaches of sexual identity in The Skin I Live In to this throwaway camp farce is jarring. Best to get on board with the frothy nonsense from the off as there's nothing else to do here.
It starts out sprightly enough: on a runway in the bright Spanish sun baggage handler Penelope Cruz tells lover Antonio Banderas that she's pregnant and he's over the moon. Hooray. But this isn't their story, and I'm So Excited isn't their movie. No, that belongs to a trio of flight attendants, among them Javier Cámara, whose lover is the bisexual (and married with kids) pilot de la Torre, and psychic Lola Duenes, who is convinced that something wonderful is going to happen on this flight…
It does. Life-changing stuff. For the characters, that is. For the audience watching that's another matter as we're forced to sit through some pretty indulgent rubbish. There is one long scene (shot in one take) where the trio of flight attendants discuss what's going on and what they wish would go on (sexual misadventures mainly) which is just wonderful. But this is the only high point and by the time of the inevitable sing-along to The Pointer Sisters's titular song you might feel like opening those emergency doors and death be damned.
Almódovar dips his story in a fantasy world ruled by coincidence and circumstance. When a love rat passenger rings home, his mistress receives his call just as she's about to throw herself off a bridge; her phone falls from her hand and into the bag of a passing cyclist (Blanca Suárez) far below, who just happens to be the love rat's ex who was jilted for the now suicidal mistress standing above. Almódovar stresses at the beginning, in neon titles, that this is fantasy and it shouldn't be taken seriously and the best advice one can give here is to pay heed to that. You might actually have some fun.
