I’m So Excited! (Sony Pictures Classics, R)

The passengers and airline employees on the plane let loose with any kind of modesty, basically doing and saying whatever they want.

 

 

I’ve seen the trailer for the new Pedro Almodóvar film I’m So Excited! with an audience several times now, and it has always been greeted with confusion (at best) and derisive laughter (at worst). It’s short—just about a minute long—and doesn’t really tell you much of anything except that it’s a new Almodóvar film, it takes place on a plane, and apparently includes a dance number to “I’m So Excited” that is performed by gay male stewards.

And really, that’s about all you need to know. In fact, we can pare that above information down to just one thing: It’s the new Almodóvar film. Go see it. Why are you still reading this review? Almodóvar is one of the highest regarded of all modern filmmakers, and any new film by him is an event you should be looking forward to.

Okay, you want more specific information? I’m So Excited! is one of his more frivolous affairs, never going for the dramatic heights reached by pretty much every film he’s made since 1997’s Live Flesh. That said, at least a couple of his more serious movies from the later phase of his career haven’t entirely worked for me (I’m looking at you, Bad Education and Broken Embraces), so I’ll take an effectively lighthearted movie from him at this point rather than a semi-effective dramatic one. The plot of the film is that all of our main characters are on a flight headed to Mexico City, but there’s a problem with the plane’s landing gear and so it needs to find an open runway to make an emergency landing on. What is a deus ex machina in other movies (coughalmostfamouscough) is the whole movie here. Since the plane is in serious danger, the passengers and airline employees on the plane let loose with any kind of modesty, basically doing and saying whatever they want. Well, in fairness, they were all kind of doing that before they even found out that the plane was in danger, but whatever.

Among the passengers are fairly typical Almodóvar stock characters. Gay stewards aside we have open-minded pilots, a young couple, an assassin who looks like a Spanish Frank Zappa, a virgin clairvoyant, Javier Cámara, Cecilia Roth, and even briefly Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas. On the filmmaking side, Almodóvar is as good with bright, saturated colors as ever, and is of course very funny. Also, you’d be hard pressed to find a director able to make a woman look more beautiful than Almodóvar can. (Maybe it’s because he’s willing to, you know, give them a personality that exists outside of their looks; Almodóvar women feel like real people.)

To sum up: If you’re an Almodóvar fan, go see I’m So Excited! If you’re not an Almodóvar fan, you should be. | Pete Timmermann