Milena Smit – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

AMARGA NAVIDAD/BITTER CHRISTMAS (NYFF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson

September 30, 2026October 12, 2026 Diane Carson Amarga Navidad/Bitter Christmas, Bárbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Milena Smit, NYFF 2026, Patrick Criado, pedro almodovar, Spanish films

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.

Reviews

PARALLEL MOTHERS – Review by Martha K Baker

December 22, 2021December 26, 2021 Martha K. Baker (Archived Contributor) Milena Smit, motw, Movie of the Week, Parallel Mothers, pedro almodovar, penelope cruz, Spanish films

In film after film, Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar has built a reputation as a man who understands women. With Parallel Mothers, he also proves that women belong not just in the home but also in the world. He layers stories to underscore an understanding of the force that is woman.

Movie of the Week Reviews

MOVIE OF THE WEEK December 24, 2021: PARALLEL MOTHERS

December 19, 2021January 1, 2022 Jennifer Merin betsy bozdech, Cate Marquis, jennifer merin, leslie combemale, liz whittemore, Marilyn Ferdinand., Milena Smit, motw, Movie of the Week, nell minow, Pam Grady, Parallel Mothers, pedro almodovar, penelope cruz, sherin nicole, Spanish films, susan wloszczyna

Pedro Almodovar is no stranger to telling compelling stories about complex women, from Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown to All About My Mother to Volver and more. His streak continues with Parallel Mothers, an emotional drama about connection, coincidence, and the ties that bind us. Penelope Cruz and Milena Smit star as two women whose lives are irrevocably entwined after they give birth in the same hospital on the same day.

Reviews

PARALLEL MOTHERS – Review by Susan Wloszczyna

December 13, 2021December 18, 2021 Jennifer Merin Milena Smit, motw, Movie of the Week, Parallel Mothers, pedro almodovar, penelope cruz, Spanish films

Motherhood is central to the plot but there is so much more, including suspenseful Hitchcockian overtones and a dollop of high-end soap opera. But Almodovar also tosses in a political theme this time when Peneolpe Cruz’s 40-ish professional photographer Janis is assigned to shoot a hunky forensic anthropologist. She reaches out to him to see if he can exhume the remains of some relatives who were forced to dig their own graves by fascist murderers during the Spanish Civil War. It’s a rare time that this auteur has brought politics into one of his twisty cinematic equations as the present and past collide.

Festivals Reviews

PARALLEL MOTHERS (NYFF21) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

October 6, 2021July 17, 2024 Valerie Kalfrin Milena Smit, New York Film Festival, new york film festival 2021, NYFF59, Parallel Mothers, pedro almodovar, penelope cruz, Spanish films

Writer-director Pedro Almodóvar spins a twisty tale of motherhood, identity, and family amid a historical reckoning. While resolving the drama between two new mothers, the film addresses the issue of persons who were disappeared during the Franco regime in Spain. Parallel Mothers makes us ponder just what motherhood and family entail.