In Justin Chang's review, Pedro Almodóvar's 'Bitter Christmas' follows Elsa, a Madrid director with panic attacks whose loving firefighter-stripper boyfriend cares for her, until she is revealed as a stand-in in a screenplay by Raúl, a veteran director modeled on Almodóvar himself. Chang reads the film as exploring how artists turn friends' lives into fiction, finding it absorbing and especially sharp on how close pals can become bitterly estranged.