AMARGA NAVIDAD/BITTER CHRISTMAS (NYFF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson
In Amarga Navidad/Bitter Christmas, Pedro Almodóvar intertwines stories
Noted Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar is at heart an experimental filmmaker working in a narrative world, often seamlessly integrating his dual impulses with occasional bumps here and there (Parallel Mothers, 2021, a case in point.) However, in Amarga Navidad/Bitter Christmas, Almodóvar blends both appetites masterfully in a semi-autobiographical, nonchronological exploration of creativity. In it, to overcome his writer’s block, celebrated film director Raúl Rossetti (Leonardo Sbaraglia) borrows surreptitiously and invasively from closest friends’ lives in order to develop his future film’s screenplay, also titled Amarga Navidad/Bitter Christmas. Exploring the interplay between fictitious and derivative stories, Almodóvar presents parallel accounts, the actual events occurring over a long weekend in December 2004 in Madrid with Raúl’s assembled version written in the summer of 2026.
In 2004, central character, advertising director Elsa (Bárbara Lennie) connects with firefighter Bonifacio (Patrick Criado) at a strip club. Two other women factor in to these events, namely, Patricia (Victoria Luengo), exiting a humiliating relationship with her husband, and Natalia (Milena Smit), mourning her son’s death and suffering from migraines. In the interwoven narratives, nearing 60, an isolated Raúl relies on his partner Santi (called Bonifacio in the integration into Raúl’s script) and assistant Mónica (Aitana Sánchez-Gijóon) to aid him, yet he remains adrift, uncertain, and anxious. Attempting to both finish his screenplay and allay his fears, Raúl plunges deeper psychologically and emotionally into Elsa’s experiences, incorporating his own panic attack into the script. No spoilers but confrontations escalate after Mónica leaves to care for her distressed friend Elena, storms back after learning of details Raúl incorporates and alters from her life in his prose, with Santi soon implicated as well.
Immensely complicated, even convoluted, this all unfolds with intricate overlap among the numerous, interwoven chapters of the many characters. The through line is the exploitation and assimilation of the real into the invented, art borrowing from and, possibly, parasitically, nakedly and shamelessly using friends’ traumas. Adding even further depth, songs, especially the two Chavela Vargas songs (including Amarga Navidad), intensify the theme of abandonment, as Almodóvar emphasized in his Cannes Film Festival press conference I attended. He agreed, “That’s why I included them . . . the pain and love well up, recognizing all the mistakes are something very positive.”
Not ducking any questions of the semi-autobiographical connections, Almodóvar also said, “Leonardo [who plays Raúl] is my alter ego.” Adding profundity, Elsa, who directs commercials, is Raúl’s alter ego. Regarding Elsa, Almodóvar admits, “She goes through a crisis that I went through. Three levels of reality mix with each other.” Delving further into the theme of biography informing creation, Almodóvar acknowledges Bitter Christmas as a diptych with Pain and Glory because “I talk about myself. I recognize myself in the character of Raúl” whom he describes as “very self-centered . . . the only thing he thinks about is what will help him to write.” And yet Almodóvar comprehends the moral issue, noting “you have this feeling of guilt . . . When you are swept away by this creativity, it’s impossible for me to say I can’t follow it.” And yet, he adds, “I would like to change direction. This film is probably the last one about myself.” Thankfully, Almodóvar’s life and creativity informs Amarga Navidad/Bitter Christmas, and the provocative ending (not detailed here) invites even further questions to pursue. In Spanish with English subtitles, Amarga Navidad/Bitter Christmas opens in cinemas beginning November 13.
