Worth getting excited about

Worth getting excited about

Spanish fly flick hits the spot

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Worth getting excited about

It's campy and flamboyant, feisty and funny. I'm So Excited is everything you love about the works of prominent (and gay) Spanish director Pedro Almodovar.

I’m So Excited
Carlos Areces, Javier Camara, Raul Arevalo.
Directed by Pedro Almodovar.

Almodovar's finest work was All About My Mother, released in 1999, in which the maestro shows how he blends bittersweet drama with artifice and comedy. His early films _ Law Of Desire (1987), Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (1988), Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990) _ were dark and twisted, but since the 2000s he's taken turns to be tender (Talk To Her in 2002 is a near-masterpiece) as well as lively and downright weird (The Skin I Live In, a sex-change thriller). When we saw the trailer of his new film, in which three gay flight attendants dance in front of passengers to the Pointer Sisters' song of the title, we gather that the Spaniard is going full throttle for the bright gay mode, and that's partly right.

Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas _ the only two known names in the film _ play cameo roles when the film opens. I'm So Excited then takes off at the airport runway as Flight 2549 from Madrid to Mexico City lifts up. Chaos develops once the plane is airborne as the crew discovered a technical error that will not allow the plane to land properly, making death a possibility. Economy class passengers are drugged into deep sleep to avoid them making a scene. That leaves the business class passengers in the care of three gay stewards (Javier Camara, Carlos Areces and Raul Arevalo); once the passengers realise their fate, they make this frightening flight even more unforgettable.

Don't simply label this film a "gay" movie _ Almodovar films, even when they're not so good, are more complex than that. Like the horizon glimpsed outside the plane's windows, the world of Almodovar's characters is borderless when it comes to sexuality.

Sex, however, is what I'm So Excited is all about. Besides the fabulous flight attendants, among the sober passengers are a middle-age clairvoyant who remains a virgin (Lola Duenas from Volver and Broken Embrace), a former dominatrix porn star (Argentinian actress Cecilia Roth from All About My Mother), a well-off womaniser, a newly-wed couple, a mysterious Mexican man and a troubled financier. Not to mention a bisexual pilot and his straight but sexually curious colleague.

The film is perfect to be remade as a stage play, since the main action takes place almost entirely in one setting _ the business class cabin.

When the safe landing is not guaranteed, each character unveils the secrets and wounds in their lives. True to form, sex is celebrated as a gateway of liberation in this frustrating flight.

As much as the film screams sex, in capital letters, and the director is known for featuring bare flesh in most of his films, I'm So Excited is propelled without blatant nudity but rather witty dialogue and images. Being a Spanish-language film definitely doubles the degree of sexiness.

Not only does the cinematic direction bring viewers back to the 80s _ from the soundtrack to the vintage set _ Almodovar, ostentatious in style yet delicate in feeling, shares with us the beauty of the past when a simple phone call means much more than today's glut of smartphones when people seem to be connected only through gadgets. The emergency phone call plays an important role in introducing the characters as each of them decides to make what seems like the last calls in their lives _ but the broken device becomes a key plot point that speaks to their destiny.

One of the things that comes to mind when we think of planes is holidays, a trip to reinvigorate our lives _ I'm So Excited may as well be Almodovar's break from heart-wrenching, mind-crunching stories to just loosen up a little. If you are looking for a break, I'm So Excited is definitely going to a fun trip.

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