I’m So Excited!

In his flam­boy­ant bad-taste punk debut Pepi, Luci, Bom from 1980, Pedro Almod­ó­var had his char­ac­ters indulge in com­ic rape-revenge, enforced water sports and kinky out­door penis-mea­sur­ing com­pe­ti­tions. The film was intend­ed as an affront to author­i­ty, arriv­ing in Span­ish cin­e­mas soon after the fall of the Fran­co régime and the puri­tan­i­cal con­ser­vatism and strin­gent media cen­sor­ship that came with it.

Flash for­ward 33 years and Almod­ó­var is up to his old tricks. But while I’m So Excit­ed might seem quaint when com­pared to the kind of cum-splashed, shit-flecked gross-out that makes it on to cin­e­ma screens these days, this tri­umphant return to the realm of the risqué feels like Almodóvar’s point­ed attempt to com­bat a cer­tain cosy sobri­ety that has infect­ed his work of late.

I’m So Excit­ed is decep­tive­ly dis­pos­able, a lewd exis­ten­tial com­e­dy cabaret set on a doomed pas­sen­ger jet that’s cir­cling above Tole­do await­ing clear­ance for an emer­gency land­ing. With fiery death an immi­nent pos­si­bil­i­ty, the eccen­tric coterie of busi­ness class pas­sen­gers (econ­o­my have been chem­i­cal­ly sedat­ed, natch) decide that this would be the time to rit­u­al­ly unbur­den them­selves of their inti­mate, sex­u­al longings.

All the while, three swag­ger­ing gay flight atten­dants ply the unusu­al­ly com­posed fly­ers with Valen­cia Cock­tail (orange juice, Cham­pagne, bit­ters) that’s been laced with mesca­line. They also lip-synch won­der­ful­ly to the epony­mous Point­er Sis­ters dit­ty to help ease the psy­cho­log­i­cal suffering.

If Bro­ken Embraces was Almodóvar’s paean to the pursed roman­ti­cism of Dou­glas Sirk and The Skin I Live In his take on Georges Franju’s fix­a­tion with iden­ti­ty and masks, then I’m So Excit­ed con­tin­ues this run of cine-mon­u­ments to clas­sic-era filmmakers.

The inspi­ra­tion here appears to be Frank Tash­lin, the direc­tor who began his career as a Dis­ney ani­ma­tor and then went on to make joc­u­lar, inno­v­a­tive come­dies with Jer­ry Lewis (The Geisha Boy) and Bob Hope (Son Of Pale­face) along­side rib­ald pop cul­ture satires Will Suc­cess Spoil Rock Hunter? and The Girl Can’t Help It. Tashlin’s vibrant aes­thet­ic, dogged mis­chie­vous­ness, his sense of coiled cyn­i­cism and his wicked way with a song-and-dance num­ber suf­fuse every frame of I’m So Excited.

It also sug­gests that while it may look like there’s a nin­com­poop pilot­ing this met­al cof­fin, the deci­sions Almod­ó­var makes are bol­stered with a sly intel­li­gence. The film also taps into the cur­rent vogue for bur­lesque and per­for­mance art, with the wipeclean inte­ri­or of the cab­in act­ing as a suit­ably mock­able stage for the salty con­fes­sion­al that follows.

Even a lit­tle sor­tie out of the cab­in, fol­low­ing a mid­dle-aged actor (Guiller­mo Tole­do) want­i­ng to pre­vent his deranged girl­friend (Paz Vega) from sui­cide, appears to offer a sub­tly barbed depic­tion of primped bour­geois lifestyles, pre­sent­ing a sun-splashed Madrid peo­pled with tat­tooed hip­sters on push bikes and strange serendip­i­tous meet­ings made pos­si­ble via shiny smartphones.

One issue with the film is that it’s acid­ly amus­ing more than down-and-out fun­ny and often some of the pur­port­ed­ly out­ra­geous sit­u­a­tions come across as tame or out­mod­ed. The two pilots are clos­et homo­sex­u­als, which is appar­ent­ly hilar­i­ous in and of itself. The fam­i­ly-man cap­tain is furtive­ly embroiled in a love affair with Javier Cámara’s head trol­ley­dol­ly and pre­dictable gags about blowjobs and restroom bunk-ups aim for square­ly for broad laughs. Plus, the director’s ususal­ly scin­til­lat­ing dia­logue comes up far short of stel­lar, with the crutch of pot­ty-mouthed sex chat des­per­ate­ly bun­dled in to secure any cheap rise going.

Occa­sion­al­ly, the humour even tips over into the poten­tial­ly dis­taste­ful: Lola Dueñas nut­ty psy­chic Bruna is upset that she’s set to die a vir­gin and so attempts to court the sex­u­al atten­tions of her fraught co-pas­sen­gers. Her blan­ket rejec­tion then leads her to skulk into coach class, where she opts to have her wicked way with a qua­si-anes­thetised hunk. It’s hard to judge how this ​‘joke’ is sup­posed to be tak­en: as straight-up provo­ca­tion; as a com­ment on death anx­i­ety and the deprav­i­ty it invokes; or a light-heart­ed encounter in which no par­ty suf­fers any phys­i­cal harm.

Either way, the ambi­gu­i­ty of tone makes it tougher to enjoy the film on its most basic terms. Pho­to­graph­i­cal­ly, Almod­ó­var does his best in this extreme­ly con­fined and bland space, but the assid­u­ous clas­si­cal com­po­si­tions and flu­id cam­era move­ments of yore are most­ly a no-show. There’s even some­thing of a light sit­com vibe to the look of the film, and corny as that often is, it does make for a neat fit with the know­ing­ly trashy material.

And then from nowhere, Almod­ó­var mounts a sen­sa­tion­al, atmos­pher­ic mon­tage of an emp­ty air­port to work as a visu­al short­hand for the land­ing of the plane (which is not shown on screen). This curt mon­tage offers a brac­ing coun­ter­point to the pas­tel-hued, mile-high larks.

Yet come the final reel, Almod­ó­var reveals the film’s dark heart. It’s hard to expound any fur­ther with­out spoil­ing the plot, but suf­fice to say all the events in the film are deli­cious­ly invert­ed in one swift flick of the wrist. The final shot sees a crew mem­ber rolling around in a car­pet of churn­ing, pearly-white foam. How appropriate.