Bitter Christmas: Pedro Almodóvar Gets Autobiographical, Again

Description

If there’s one rule of global arthouse cinema, it’s that none of the rules apply to Pedro Almodóvar. Since 1999’s mature breakthrough All About My Mother, the Spanish auteur has consistently scored global blockbuster smashes — a track record matched by no other European director not working in English. His 24th feature Bitter Christmas shows no sign of breaking the winning streak, with all the familiar Almodóvar tropes in place: a struggling artist, a male lap dancer, a pensive mood of grief broken by sporadic bursts of opportune humour, and a primary-colour-heavy set design that would never work in real life.

Picking up themes from 2019’s autobiographical Pain & Glory, Bitter Christmas focuses on a gay male director who is mining his own producer’s personal life for material, while wrestling with whether female artists are getting enough credit. There’s no tinsel in sight, but there is a rounded out cast of friends and acquaintances dealing with the profound mundanities of grief, adultery and teenage children. Among Almodovar’s greatest gifts is an ability to imbue the every day with meaning while bursting the heaviest balloons with levity, and this late-career offering is unlikely to disappoint.

The film goes on general release from 17 September, with select previews from 13 September.