The title comes from a song; this isn’t really a Christmas movie. There are ups and downs in every career, but Pedro Almodóvar has been on a downswing lately. He commented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023 that he is no longer interested in exploring human sexuality onscreen, though because those comments were made in Spanish and only translated into French, they were not picked up as widely as they should have been. His film following those comments, The Room Next Door, was about friendship and death. (Despite it winning the Golden Lion at that year’s Venice Film Festival, it’s really not very good, too fusty and foolish to be enjoyable.) But Mr. Almodóvar is so beloved that his most recent film, Bitter Christmas (playing in some countries as Autofiction), was allowed into the main competition at Cannes Film Festival this year despite being previously commercially released in Spain. This is a very high compliment, but unfortunately one that Bitter Christmas is not worth. Mr. Almodóvar is clearly working through some stuff, and even his weakest work is always worth a look, but this was a film made for him to make, and not for audiences to watch.
It’s also quite difficult to discuss Bitter Christmas’ plot without spoilers, though the marketing makes the twists pretty clear. Suffice to say there’s a double plot. In the first, a director of TV commercials named Elsa (Bárbara Lennie) starts dating a younger fireman named Bonifacio (a good-humoured Patrick Criado). Bonifacio is a great boyfriend, kind and attentive, and also he moonlights as a stripper, so there are plenty of reasons to love him. One of his stripping routines, in front of a baying group of bachelorettes complete with sashes and plastic tiaras, is shown in full. This is for Elsa’s research purposes and not because it’s sexy in any way at all, of course. After events Elsa ends up taking a working holiday in a gorgeous house in Lanzarote to which she impulsively invites a grieving friend of hers, Patricia (Victoria Luengo), but not Bonifacio, to come along. The beaches there have black sand. Complications ensue. In the other plotline, a movie director named Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia) is experiencing some inconveniences. His boyfriend Santi (Quim Gutiérrez) is so wonderful Raúl feels guilty about how he treats him, his longstanding personal assistant Mónica (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón) has resigned, and also he has writer’s block. Raúl attempting to guilt-trip Mónica into continuing to work for him mysteriously doesn’t work out the way he wanted, but in doing so Mónica learns something that it might have been better for her not to know. Complications ensue here, too.
Gee whiz, why would a movie director whose work hasn’t been highly praised lately might make a film about a struggling movie director? Well, look, there’s nothing wrong with that, and in complete fairness, Elsa’s section of the film is way more interesting than Raúl’s. But clearly the stories had to be combined because Mr. Almodóvar was able to figure out an end for one and not the other. This is a shame, not only because it means Almodóvar stalwart Rossy de Palma has but one brief appearance, but also because singer Amaia Romero, in her first film role, has nothing to do but sing one badly staged song and disappear. But we must remember Mr. Almodóvar is allegedly no longer interested in human sexuality. It might be there’s a reason he is feeling stuck if he’s trying to ignore the precise topic on which built his extraordinary career. At least this was also not the only film in the Cannes competition this year about an artist grappling with the real-life consequences of an artistic decision.
But it’s clear that this movie is like the difficult second album after someone has changed their tune. Cinematographer Pau Esteve Birba keeps his camera at a respectful distance from the action, like someone watching a conversation from across a room. Even a party sequence is largely staged in the room with the coats. Bright block color schemes and clever use of music are present here, as they are in most of Mr. Almodóvar’s films. Yet most of the credit for how well the whole movie works is due to Mr. Criado’s complete understanding of his assignment. Liking someone that much goes a very long way. Ms. Sánchez-Gijón has a harder time earning audience sympathy in a part that’s very difficult by design, but she carries that off perfectly, too. So there are some things of value here for the casual cinemagoer. On the assumption that Mr. Almodóvar has as least one other movie in him, Bitter Christmas will be seen as the transitional film to whichever phase of his career follows. It’s a pity that it’s not strong enough to stand outside of this position in his story, though.
Bitter Christmas / Amarga Navidad recently played at the Cannes Film Festival.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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