453. I’m So Excited! (2013)

Starring: Carmen Maura, Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Running Time: 90 mins

I’m So Excited (Los amantes pasajeros) is a Spanish film about a group of passengers on a plane, who, in the face of a great peril, find out the best about each other, as well as themselves.

This was really not at all as good as I expected. In the past, Almodóvar has managed to blend excellent comedy and exciting drama, making for a brilliant watch, but here, he really fails to do anything like that, making this one of his dullest and least satisfying films.

The film starts off with a good amount of farcical comedy. Although it didn’t really make me laugh at all, it was simple and enjoyable enough to sit through without much pain, however as the movie goes on, the comedy completely changes.

On the one hand, the level of farce goes to ridiculous new heights. After the slightly funny opening, the film inundates you with ridiculous comedy that’s so stupid it’s not even fun to watch, making it both boring and annoying to watch.

On the other hand, the film takes a dramatic turn in Act 2, where it begins to assess the concepts of love and death through its already annoying and uninteresting characters, so you as a viewer have little interest in watching them discover the importance of life and love etc.

Also, the overly dramatised nature of this part of the film is in stark contrast to the ridiculously farcical atmosphere at the beginning, so you’re left in such confusion regarding whether to laugh or cry at what’s happening on screen that there’s barely any point in looking at either.

This film is also full of your Almodóvar favourites. There’s Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz, Lola Dueñas and more, and yet this film is so disappointing that I would say it’s an almost identical version of Movie 43, but in Spanish.

Overall, I’ll give this a 4.7, because it was a dull, unfunny, annoying and very disappointing story to follow.