Bitter Christmas

Pedro Almodóvar’s films have always been self-reflexive, folding in layers of memory and personal history alongside his propensity for primary-coloured melodrama. In Bitter Christmas, Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia) is a filmmaker in the midst of an intense creative crisis, who finds a spark of inspiration in the pain of his longtime assistant Mónica (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), whose best friend recently lost their child. In parallel, we follow the story Raúl writes, itself about a creatively adrift filmmaker (a luminous Bárbara Lennie), who draws inspiration from the trauma of the people around her, including a friend who herself has lost a child. Both directors find their loved ones are less than amenable to having their lives mined for drama, as the line between autofiction and biography blur.

Bitter Christmas finds Almodóvar reflecting on a storied career, picking through the personal debris that being an artist engenders. Throughout, Almodóvar’s propensity for melodrama is present, but muted — it is a work in the midst of a fascinating conversation with itself.

– Tom Augustine