Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is a legendary talent with two Oscars, countless awards, and an international reputation almost anyone in show business would envy. He’s best known for his twisty, distinctive scripts, his superb command of actors, and a bright, saturated color palette, whether the material is light or dark. His films have always carried an autobiographical shade, and in the last decade he’s done some of his best work telling stories that put his ‘stand-in’ characters at the center. PAIN & GLORY was one such example: an autumnal triumph that examines an aging filmmaker and netted a Best Actor Oscar nomination for a never-better Antonio Banderas.
Now, Almodóvar returns with a film so meta, and so about him, that the audience will delight in recognizing his machinery at play. It’s a character study that alternates between two interconnected time periods: 2004 and 2026. In the 2004 storyline, Elsa (Bárbara Lennie) is a commercial director battling extreme stress. Her migraines have sent her to the hospital as she juggles her job, panic attacks about age and career, not to mention the fallout from her mother’s death over the Christmas holiday. In the 2026 storyline, Raul (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a filmmaker in his sixties, has been in a creative drought for some time, but now is trying to make a comeback with a new script. It follows an advertising director trying to make a comeback by vacationing on the island of Lanzarote. Yep, that’s right. Raul writes a thinly veiled autobiography of his filmmaking insecurities, using his fictional creation, Elsa, as his conduit.
It gets even more complicated from there: Elsa has a stripper boyfriend (Patrick Criado) and a friend Natalia (Milena Smit), also grieving a family loss, while Raul struggles with his twenty-years-younger partner, Santi (Quim Gutiérrez), and his longtime producing partner, Monica (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón). Soon, the intertwining stories become almost comical as Almodóvar’s script comments on one story, then the other, then the one within the second, not to mention us watching it all and trying to keep the “reality” from the “fiction” straight. Confusing us and having fun with the blurred lines is part of the objective, and the filmmaker wants us to laugh and feel for not only his characters and their predicaments, but also for their similarities. He also wants us to be keenly aware that we are asked to watch it all in a meta way. I laughed even more at the director’s playing with us than at the on-screen quirks of his characters and their dry, comedic dialogue.
BITTER CHRISTMAS isn’t quite top-tier Almodóvar, like TALK TO HER, ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, and WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, but it is never less than compelling, clever, and drolly acted by an accomplished and, dare I say, stunningly beautiful cast. It’s also brimming with color and verve, even if Almodóvar doesn’t move his camera nearly enough here. At times, it feels almost like a static sitcom, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether the stillness is intentional, meant to reflect that both Elsa and Raul are creatively stuck, unsure how to move out of their rut. I’ll give the director the benefit of the doubt here, but it doesn’t quite have the visual energy of his previous masterpieces.
Still, Almodóvar remains my favorite contemporary director because he consistently challenges audiences, delivers stronger female characters than any other filmmaker, twists and turns his plots with virtuosity, and believes in the human spirit’s capacity to love, create, transcend, forgive, and make a difference in art and community. He’s not only a brilliant artist but also a humanitarian of the highest order, and watching his works feels entertaining, thought-provoking, and spiritual.
I am also proud to say that I’ve witnessed many of his films at the CIFF and appreciate the festival’s generous offerings of international films to audiences. I’ve attended the festival every year since 1983, and I hope you, fans and followers, join the fun too. There is a second showing of BITTER CHRISTMAS on Sunday, October 25th, and you can find the details here: https://www.chicagofilmfestival.com/film/bitter-christmas/
