Pedro Almodovar’s latest: high altitude, high camp comedy…

After the macabre gothic melodrama of his previous film, The Skin I Live In, a change of pace for Pedro Almodovar: a return to his earlier, frothy comedies like Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown.

We are a on a plane, bound for Mexico. There is a problem with the landing equipment. It is likely the plane will crash, killing everyone on board. The air stewards have sedated the whole of economy class, with only those in business class – an actor, a psychic, a dominatrix, a hitman, a businessman and a pair of newly weds – alert to the possible catastrophe. What to do? Break out the tequila, get stoned and watch the air stewards perform from their extensive “repertoire of musical numbers.” What’s this? Why, one passenger has their “ass packed with mescaline.” Hurray!

As you might have guessed by now, I’m So Excited runs at a hysterical pitch. After all, there aren’t many airplane disaster movies that feature the plane’s crew performing impromptu dance routines to the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited”. Almodovar finds something to keep all his characters occupied – both secrets and bodily fluids are liberally spilled during the film’s brisk run time.

It helps that the only working phone on the plane is damaged, meaning that every conversation held between passenger and a loved one back on the ground is transmitted over the plane’s loud-speaker system. There’s nice cameos at the start from Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz, as the witless ground crew who cause the problems with the landing gear in the first place. A minor – but exuberantly funny – piece from the Spanish master.

Michael Bonner