A hilarious mess of meringue with spicy chorizo, this over-the-top story of crackpots on a Madrid to Mexico City plane had Jack and me laughing and rolling our eyes. It opens with the antics of ground crew Antonio Banderas (last blogged in Ruby Sparks) and Penelope Cruz (most recently in To Rome With Love), both regular players in the work of director/writer Almodóvar (his last project was the intense The Skin I Live In--this is his first wacky comedy in 20 years), and then we don't see them again. The action moves to the plane, led by chief flight attendant Joserra, played to perfection by Javier Cámara (Sex and Lucia (Lucía y el sexo - 2001), Almodóvar's Talk to Her (Hable con ella - 2002), Almodóvar's Bad Education (La mala educación - 2004), among others), the crew, and the passengers. The only one from the plane I recognized was Lola Dueñas (was in The Sea Inside (2004), and worked with Almodóvar on Talk to Her, Volver (2005), Broken Embraces, more) as the psychic, and she is funny here. I should have recognized Cecilia Roth from Almodóvar's All About My Mother (1999) but I didn't because her hair is so different. I also should have recognized Paz Vega (Lucia in Sex and Lucia, Talk to Her, Spanglish (2004), others), who plays Alba, one of two beauties on the ground. The other is Blanca Suárez (the doctor's daughter in The Skin I Live In) as Ruth. Camára and the two other male flight attendants notably camp it up to the max.
The colorful cinematography is by José Luis Alcaine (profiled in The Skin I Live In) and is typical of the director's palette. Even the opening and closing credits are bright and 60s psychedelic (we noticed that the volume went up at the end but stayed put as usual).
The one part of the music you're most likely to remember is the "title" track by the Pointer Sisters (I use quotes because the actual title in Spanish translates roughly to "the amorous passengers"). Alberto Iglesias (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) composes plenty of high quality tunes for background, which can be previewed on the amazon page or you can hear long versions of some of them here.
Better leave the kids at home. This has lots of gay and straight sex (though no nudity) and drugs. The critics aren't loving it (49% and audiences 42% on rottentomatoes) but we thought it was fun with its references to other work of the director and more than one tip of the hat to Airplane (1980). So whom will you trust?
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