A bitter Christmas from a film master

Pedro Almodovar has never shied away from making deeply personal films, nor from thematizing the act of filmmaking itself. In his latest work, “Bitter Christmas,” he builds parallel stories about a successful writer and director going through a serious creative block, and about a group of people from a period twenty-two years earlier, who may or may not become part of his new script. Through this concept, Almodovar asks the question of how justified it is to turn the lives of those closest to us into fiction - or, more precisely, autofiction - when the memories of his main character and a kind of alter ego may be intertwined with the truth, and perhaps distort it.

It takes a while for the viewer to realize that they are actually following two different films, which, intriguingly and inevitably, will eventually merge into one whole, even though they take place as separate stories in different time frames.

The story, set in the present, follows the filmmaker Raul Roseti (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a man trapped in a deep creative crisis, unable to rediscover the inspiration that made him one of the most successful screenwriters and directors of his generation. He shares a comfortable life with his devoted partner Santi (Quim Gutierrez), while his long-time collaborator Monica (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, one of the faces of Almodovar's oeuvre) is temporarily absent due to a personal crisis. However, she carries with her a copy of his new screenplay titled “A Bitter Christmas.” Although the title suggests a holiday theme, this part of the story is set in the summer of 2026 and has almost nothing to do with the Christmas holidays.

The second parallel story takes us to Madrid in December 2004, but it doesn't have the slightest Christmas spirit either. At its center is Elsa (Barbara lennie), a director who, after several unsuccessful feature films, directed her creativity towards the world of advertising and marketing. At the same time, she enters into a relationship with the much younger Bonifacio (charming Patrick criado), a man with an unusual biography who works as a stripper, which the film depicts throughout one act, but also as a firefighter. His versatility almost seems like Almodovar's joke.

Elsa's friend and colleague Patricia (Victoria Luengo) is convinced that her husband is unfaithful, while the third important female figure is Natalia (Milena smit), a woman devastated by tragedy after her son is killed in a car accident while she is behind the wheel. Natalia is connected to Monica, and it is this connection, along with the relationship between Santi and Bonifacio, that will become the key element that connects two time periods and two seemingly separate worlds. Her direct, ruthlessly honest assessment of Raul's creative block will prove crucial.

The film moves energetically between the past and the present, until both stories merge into one, focused on the reawakening of the creative energy of the sixty-year-old author. Raul must find a way to break his own period of darkness and reclaim what he cannot live without - the pleasure of writing a screenplay that could be received as well as his greatest works, but above all the passion for storytelling itself. He is afraid of the passage of time and the possibility that the years will slowly erode his ability to do what he has always done and what, it seems, he must continue to do.

The parallels with Almodovar himself are so obvious that one wonders if making a film about making a film is a kind of personal therapy for this great filmmaker. At one point Monica reminds us that even Felini i Bergman went through creative droughts, but that both the “lesser Fellini” and the “lesser Bergman” were still a precious gift to audiences. The thought serves as Almodóvar’s own justification for returning to themes from his own life, even if this film doesn’t reach the artistic heights of his 2019 autobiographical “Pain & Glory.”

However, there is no reason to worry. Few filmmakers have had a career without its ups and downs, and Almodovar has long since secured his place among the greatest thanks to his masterpieces and numerous accolades, including Oscars. “A Bitter Christmas” may be, to put it mildly, a “lesser Almodovar,” probably not the film that could finally bring him the long-awaited Palme d’Or, but it remains an interesting, if imperfect, journey through the inner world of a master filmmaker. It only reaches its full potential in the final third, when it delivers some of the most penetrating dialogue that audiences have come to expect from Almodovar.

Leonardo Sbaraglia convincingly portrays a man lost in search of inspiration, who ultimately finds it among the people who have been right in front of his eyes all along. The rest of the cast: Barbara Lennie, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, Victoria Luengo and Milena Smit, fit perfectly into Almodovar's recognizable, emphatically melodramatic universe.

The music leaves a less successful impression. Alberta IglesiasHis score, inspired by Hitchcockian tension, seems too grandiose for the intimate nature of this story and fails to always find the right tonality.

He is the producer of the film Augustine Almodovar"A Bitter Christmas" was shown in the official competition of the Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered, after having already begun its theatrical run in Spain earlier this year.