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James Mottram

3.5/5 stars
At 76, Pedro Almodovar is in a state of self-reflection – at least that is what you may feel after watching Bitter Christmas, the 24th film of the Spanish director’s career.
Receiving its international premiere in the Cannes Film Festival’s main competition, Bitter Christmas is a meta movie about the creative process, the film industry and the relationship between life and cinema.
It is also terrain that Almodovar has explored before, and more successfully, in 2019’s Pain and Glory, which starred Antonio Banderas as an ageing filmmaker.


Here, Raul (Leonardo Sbaraglia) is writing his latest script, Bitter Christmas. Initially, we see little of him; rather, it is his characters and story that we follow.
Raul’s protagonist is Elsa (Barbara Lennie), a cult director with two features to her name who is now working in commercials. She is struggling with ill health (migraines, mostly), a creative impasse and a turbulent personal life that includes her friend Patricia (Victoria Luengo, also known as Vicky Luengo), who believes her husband is having an affair.
Her trials become more intriguing as Raul comes into sharper focus, struggling to complete his script and drawing from the life of his assistant Monica (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) in an ill-advised move.
Does a creator have a right to magpie from real life? It is a central question in Bitter Christmas and one that has surely plagued, or at least intrigued, Almodovar. “Writing and making films isn’t everything,” we are told, but that is certainly something the director would disagree with.

There are plenty of amusing digs by Almodovar at the film industry, or “a dying profession like ours”, as it is dubbed at one point. Jokes about Netflix and Middle Eastern film festivals abound.
There is also a healthy streak of self-mockery here. “It’s like something you’ve done already,” says one character – a statement that could easily apply to Almodovar and the way directors repeatedly return to perennial themes.
Aesthetically, Almodovar’s typical flourishes are all present. Flashes of red punctuate the screen, especially when Elsa takes off to Lanzarote to write; one overhead shot, as she sunbathes on a black sand beach, is wondrous.
There is even a callback to the playful, sexually liberated works of the director’s early days via Elsa’s companion, Bonifacio (Patrick Criado) – a firefighter and stripper nicknamed Beau (and, yes, we get a full-on strip routine).

As ever, the characters are as colourful as the production design, but the back-and-forth between Elsa’s and Raul’s narratives is hard to get a handle on, as the film-within-a-film-within-a-film structure threatens to undermine the whole movie.
“You’re confusing fiction and reality,” Raul says, and the blur between the two blunts the film’s emotional impact. But, as always, an Almodovar production is a unique and transporting experience – and Bitter Christmas is no different.
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A film within a film within a film, Bitter Christmas examines the relationship between life and cinema


A film within a film within a film, Bitter Christmas examines the relationship between life and cinema.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}A film within a film within a film, Bitter Christmas examines the relationship between life and cinema

A film within a film within a film, Bitter Christmas examines the relationship between life and cinema