Pedro Almodovar is one of the greatest living film directors, the rightful heir to Hitchcock’s throne with his mix of psychosexual driven dramas and an innovative storyteller who delivers uniquely crafted narratives. When Hulu notified me that his films were going to expire and be removed on June 20, 2017, I decided to watch all his films, including the ones that I already saw. This review is the tenth in a summer series that reflect on his films and contains spoilers.
I’m So Excited! is probably my least favorite Almodovar movie even though it intentionally references two of my favorite types of movies from my childhood: the Airport franchise and the Airplane franchise, which spoofed the Airport franchise and once famously starred Leslie Nielsen. The Airport franchise is a special soap opera subset of the 70s epic disaster film. Each film would feature a star-studded cast in absurd situations. To be fair, I’m So Excited! was probably more realistic than either franchise. Unlike those films, Almodovar is less concerned with how to land the plane safely and more focused on repairing relationships. I’m So Excited! is the opposite of these franchises because no one is focused on fixing the situation or able to rise above the personal for the greater good. I am ignorant of Spanish politics so it was only after watching it that I found out that this film maybe his most explicitly politically critical feature.
Usually the beginning of an Almodovar is disorienting and the viewer has to ask, “Is this real or not (within the world of this movie)? Is it a performance?” I’m So Excited! explicitly begins with a disclaimer that it is fiction and fantasy, which all films are, but perhaps the lady doth protest too much. It is so uncharacteristic of any Almodovar film to spoon feed the viewers that I found this disclaimer shocking.
I’m So Excited! is extremely self-referential during its opening scene. The opening scene features Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz, two of Almodovar’s most famous crossover stars, and are only in this scene. They play people who work at the airport, which feels absurd on its face considering how innately famous and glamorous they are. If in real life, Banderas removed the blocks from in front of the plane’s tires, and Cruz drove the luggage cart, people would complain far less about delays at the airport. I’m just saying. Their love causes a small accident, which in turn causes the plane’s problems, which results in the entire film. It is an example of how a small dissonance for a happy couple has broader ramifications, but getting back in sync is the priority, not the work. Love and miracles derail routines and help people focus on what is truly important in their life. What I found most shocking about the film is for once, Banderas did NOT play a madman in Almodovar films! Everything is upside down in this film. The usual rules of an Almodovar film feel suspended.
I’m So Excited! involves three classes of people, but only two of them actively participate in the film or are aware of a problem: the pilots and flight attendants, business class and economy class. Economy class is asleep without their consent so they do not have knowledge of the impending crash. The flight attendants for that class drug themselves since they are not needed and are led by a transwoman. The business class is not drugged, but one woman, a newlywed, is asleep after a night of partying with her husband. They are outraged by the poor service and delays, but are initially unaware of the danger and are preoccupied with the disruption in their routine and interfere with the crew. The crew is aware of the problem and try to find ways to preoccupy the customers in business class until they can find somewhere to land/crash, but are really more concerned with the incestuous work trysts.
Even though the film takes place on a plane, a lot of people are excluded from the conversation during this crisis: people who are not wealthy, the poor and middle class, the wives of the wealthy and the female, cis and trans, portion of the crew. I’m So Excited! gives agency to the men in the crew, which are largely gay men but of many varieties on the spectrum from flamboyant to straight passing, a corrupt businessman, a Mexican assassin, a high class madam, a famous actor, a psychic on her way to a job for drug dealers and a newlywed groom. What do they do with this agency? They try to reconcile then everyone except the vaguely disapproving, prudish businessman and the newly devoted to his one true love actor distracts themselves with entertainment, drugs and sex. Oddly enough, this approach is successful and leads to a kind of happy ending for all. Almodovar may be saying about those who rule us and are supposed to be in control: we’re screwed, literally and figuratively, so have fun because no one knows what they are doing, and everyone is just thinking of themselves.
I’m So Excited! is very concerned about transparency and dealing with communication issues. The central question of the film is not what we should do, but what we should say. The goal is reconciliation and trust. The medium matters less and actually it is most helpful if the medium is public. There is no private phone so most of the passengers have to speak to their loved ones using the public announcement system. There is even a psychic who periodically clears the air and elicits candor. It has the tone of a screwball comedy, but the desperation of an apocalypse (an apocalypse can just be the end of the world for one person).
Many critics seem to think that I’m So Excited! is Almodovar’s attempt to put lightning in a bottle and recapture the light tone of his earlier movies, but they must not have seen his early work in awhile or they are remembering it differently. This film is nothing like his early work except in its flamboyancy and licentiousness. His early films may begin frenzied, but they exhale and are resolved by the end. I’m So Excited! ends still caught up in the frenzy, and though everyone lives, the chaos is still unfolding. The madam and assassin are on the run and may get killed. The businessman will be caught up in a high profile trial. The pilots’ personal lives are still in flux. The actor may or may not reconcile with his former lover. The psychic is a rapist, and the guy that she rapes is not going to stick around for long. It is his most cynical film to date. There are a lot of casual Mexican stereotypes bandied about throughout the film such as the generalization that they are murderers and drug dealers. I think that the critics are too distracted by the lip-syncing, which was fun and done by the male flight attendants to the titular song by The Pointer Sisters, and sex to notice.
I’m So Excited! featured the least satisfying narrative detour in an Almodovar film. Most of the events in the film unfold on the plane, and several of the passengers make calls on the PA system, but only the actor’s call is depicted on screen. Almodovar often follows the call to depict what is happening along the route that the call is being made. The actor’s call is to a former girlfriend, an artist with mental issues and the only explicit mad man in the film, but the camera follows her phone, which she accidentally drops. It just happens to land in another former girlfriend’s bike’s basket. The film detours to follow this bike riding beauty, a former flight attendant. She fulfills the actor’s request to make sure that the phone’s owner is fine and retrieves his things from the phone owner’s apartment, which happens to include a wooden plane. She is disgusted by his lies and hurls the phone at the plane. She reappears at the end of the film because she finds out that for once that he is telling the truth, but they do not reconcile. Like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the former flight attendant delivers his things and ends the relationship and chooses herself over losing herself to the madness of love. (Side note: her dress and the madam’s dress are gorgeous.)
Clearly Almodovar thinks that this segway is more critical than I felt it was. I’m So Excited! offers her as a foil of how to react in a time of crisis, but it does not hurt that she is not literally a part of the crisis even though psychologically she is. She has a sober, emphatic and responsible perspective not shared by those on the plane. She connects and confronts the truth without reengaging or self-medicating thus averting future crisis, but she is also not a person in charge. She remains separate and alone, but not in despair.
I’m So Excited! may have felt like a light sex comedy because we are trained to be entertained by flamboyant gay men, and Javier Camara does a great job of holding everything together, but I found the whole enterprise more disturbing and unsettling than most viewers to enjoy it as much as I do most of Almodovar’s other films. Perhaps the prude in me finally clutched her pearls, but I did not emotionally connect to any of the characters in the film though I wished them well. They felt more like archetypes in an allegory, but the real meaning of the extended metaphor remains elusive to me and did not resonate.