Storied Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar has built his career on melodramas rich in sex and agony. However, in 2019, he got more personal with Pain and Glory, a semi-autobiographical drama in which Antonio Banderas plays a thinly veiled version of the director as he looks back on his work and life, anxious to move forward with a new project. His latest, Bitter Christmas, serves as a sister film, echoing not only the semi-autobiographical element but also by casting a dashing actor in the role of an aging Almodóvar.
Leonardo Sbaraglia stars as Raúl, a filmmaker who’s hungry for inspiration for a new screenplay. In his corner are his much younger partner, Santi (Quim Gutiérrez), and his longtime manager, Mónica (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón). However, Bitter Christmas gets self-reflexive as Raúl’s story is interwoven with that in his screenplay. There, a once-revered art-house filmmaker named Elsa (Bárbara Lennie) seeks to move away from directing commercials and return to screenwriting. Aside from their similar creative quest, both also have May-December romances with younger men, and both find inspiration for their new project in the tragedy that befalls a friend.
In two layers, Almodóvar explores what it means to be an artist who may well cannibalize the stories of his loved ones for his art. But he doesn’t lose sight of what it means to see your heartache treated as fertilizer to grow that art. In both Raúl’s story and Elsa’s, the writers are confronted by a female friend is radiantly furious at having her life treated as source material without consent.
So, how do these parallel stories play out?
Bitter Christmas is compelling and frustrating.
Almodóvar, who wrote and directs Bitter Christmas, leaps back and forth between Raúl and Elsa, whose arcs play out in 2025 and 2004, respectively. Despite the decades between them, these worlds are visually similar, alive with the vivid color palettes that are part of Almodóvar’s signature style.
His characters are beautiful, always, and favor bold hues of red, magenta, gold, and amber. The production design around them is rich with the texture of lives lived: a book shelf thoughtfully organized but clearly oft-visited, a lamp shedding light on simple but elegant illustrations, a strip club for women that’s a mix of chic and sleazy. Across both stories, we’re invited to understand these people and their alter egos through such tender details.
The ensemble cast strides into this world as if it is truly theirs. Determined close-up shots allow for every micro-expression to register, while wide shots remind us of how close these friends and lovers are, and yet how fragile the space between them can be.
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Sbaraglia is intriguing in the role of Almodóvar’s first mirror, Raúl. He speaks with passion, intelligence, and a low-burning frustration, which bursts whenever he’s challenged. Elsa, however, is a more typical Almodóvar figure — a strong-willed woman who won’t be bent by the judgment of others. She is robust, defiant, and ruthlessly loyal to her art.
By contrast, the boyfriends Santi and Bonifacio (Patrick Criado) are defined by their congeniality and sex appeal. Gutiérrez, playing the older of the two, gets to weave in more nuance than the Golden Retriever boyfriend Criado is given to play. But this feels intentional, as if Raúl simplifies his lover Santi into the himbo archetype of Bonifacio. But why? It’s in these difference where Bitter Christmas becomes the most exciting for longtime Almodóvar fans.
Is the simplification of Santi meant to convince Raúl that their relationship is not so serious, so if and when it ends, his heartbreak will be lessened by anticipation? Or is the almost puppy-like sweetness and loyalty of Bonifacio meant as a quiet condemnation of Elsa’s opportunism, as she treats him with little regard even as he bends over backwards to please her? Basically, are these boy toys not meant to be mocked, but to reflect Almodóvar’s own insecurities through their guilelessness?
However, it’s Monica who becomes Bitter Christmas‘s most compelling character, and I’m not sure if that’s intentional or not.
Aitana Sánchez-Gijon owns Bitter Christmas.
At first, she seems a supporting character who flutters around the sensitive artist, caring for all the chores, emails, and requests so he won’t have to. But no sooner is her dedication defined that she’s requesting a “sabbatical.” It’s so unusual for this clear workaholic to request time off, much less a lot of time, and with little warning and no explanation, that Raúl is darkly enchanted.
Forged over decades, their professional and personal relationship is impossibly intertwined, so Monica soon shares that her dear friend has suffered a horrendous personal loss. She is going to care for her (not terribly unlike Almodóvar’s last film, The Room Next Door.) However, no sooner has she divulged this painful truth than Raúl remolds it for his fiction. Both within his script and in his life, the filmmaker will have to face the friend betrayed in this specific way.
When Monica sits down with Raúl in a garden cafe to lay into him about his selfishness in this creative endeavor, Bitter Christmas ignites. While much happens in the parallel stories, the energy of Elsa and Raúl feel subdued, as if they are always in their heads looking down on the situation instead of living fully within it. It’s possible Almodóvar intended such restraint, but it makes Bitter Christmas feel almost as if the movie is holding its breath, waiting for something profound to hit. That comes when Monica argues for herself, her privacy, and her friend’s dignity.
However, no sooner does Bitter Christmas open up into something exciting than the film itself ends. There will be no satisfying resolution — perhaps until Almodóvar’s next movie.
At one point in the movie, Raúl recognizes that even a minor work from him will be big to his fans. And it seems almost a buffer for those who might critique Bitter Christmas. Regarded on its own, this film feels thin. But Almodóvar devotees might well see it as a Rosetta stone to better understand the revered filmmaker and the whole of his body of work.
Bitter Christmas was reviewed out of its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film will open in NYC and L.A. Nov. 13, before going nationwide Nov. 25.
