I’m So Excited! is fiction, not fact. This is the film’s opening declaration. And so it follows that we begin with cameos from director Pedro Almodóvar’s staple stars, Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz playing daft airport crew, as if signalling that we have entered a film world. The digital photography capturing crisp shapes and bright colours, where even the moving aeroplane wheel is a polished black, giving over a hyper-real quality. As the plane takes off, and we begin to leave this farcical prelude sketch, Almodóvar’s camera zooms into the centre of the jet engine, a swirl in the middle rotating, hypnotising us. So, you see, this is fiction not fact, and it is escapism!
The runway was ludicrous, but the insanity is catching and it has boarded the plane with the three openly gay air-stewards , and the ambivalent bisexual pilots, and a pair of newlyweds with a groom who’s packing more than just sizable hand-luggage, and a passenger eager to tell these others that she’s a virgin and horny for it. Hence, don’t expect your in-flight entertainment to be anything but outrageously crude. If this doesn’t sound like your particular dose of comedy then you might want to evacuate upon takeoff (or better still, not even board), because this plane is about to get lost in the skies and then we’ll be stuck with this directionless farce for an extended flight.
But wait, we might want to hold off judgement for a little while longer because it seems like the pilot might just be able to salvage this flight with a crash-landing. After all, this is an experienced head guiding us, and Almodóvar has taken us on these kinds of journeys before with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990). When the flight starts to go awry, one of the crew members asks what they should do about the passengers, to which the captain replies, “Just keep them entertained and distracted”. So maybe this isn’t just escapism, perhaps there is meaning here to be found.
There are certainly suggestions that Almodóvar has a wider agenda, as a disgraced banker onboard reading a financial story about Spain’s 10 biggest financial scams, is the first of many allusions to Spain’s real life financial crisis. Unfortunately, however, any satirical intent lacks impact, which if we’re being kind we could explain through comedy translating poorly. Perhaps I’m So Excited! may have more relevance for a Spanish audience; it definitely resembles a TV film, which had it not of carried Almodóvar’s name might have struggled to have received an international release. Maybe this isn’t just escapism, but it’s nevertheless pretty darn irritating.
The runway was ludicrous, but the insanity is catching and it has boarded the plane with the three openly gay air-stewards , and the ambivalent bisexual pilots, and a pair of newlyweds with a groom who’s packing more than just sizable hand-luggage, and a passenger eager to tell these others that she’s a virgin and horny for it. Hence, don’t expect your in-flight entertainment to be anything but outrageously crude. If this doesn’t sound like your particular dose of comedy then you might want to evacuate upon takeoff (or better still, not even board), because this plane is about to get lost in the skies and then we’ll be stuck with this directionless farce for an extended flight.
But wait, we might want to hold off judgement for a little while longer because it seems like the pilot might just be able to salvage this flight with a crash-landing. After all, this is an experienced head guiding us, and Almodóvar has taken us on these kinds of journeys before with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990). When the flight starts to go awry, one of the crew members asks what they should do about the passengers, to which the captain replies, “Just keep them entertained and distracted”. So maybe this isn’t just escapism, perhaps there is meaning here to be found.
There are certainly suggestions that Almodóvar has a wider agenda, as a disgraced banker onboard reading a financial story about Spain’s 10 biggest financial scams, is the first of many allusions to Spain’s real life financial crisis. Unfortunately, however, any satirical intent lacks impact, which if we’re being kind we could explain through comedy translating poorly. Perhaps I’m So Excited! may have more relevance for a Spanish audience; it definitely resembles a TV film, which had it not of carried Almodóvar’s name might have struggled to have received an international release. Maybe this isn’t just escapism, but it’s nevertheless pretty darn irritating.