Pedro Almodóvar's 'Bitter Christmas' opens to praise as a meditation on art, friendship, and fiction

31h ← 47h

Summary

Pedro Almodóvar's 'Bitter Christmas' is his twenty-fourth feature, about Elsa, a Madrid director with panic attacks, and Raúl, a veteran director modeled on Almodóvar.
The film gives Almodóvar two alter egos: Elsa is a character in the script Raúl is writing, also titled 'Bitter Christmas', and the two inhabit separate time frames and narrative planes.
Elsa's romance is with Bonifacio, a firefighter who strips on weekends, whom the film idealizes, while its sharpest relationships are the arguments between friends and colleagues.
The film borrows details from Almodóvar's life, including his anxiety attacks and migraines, continuing the semi-autobiographical line of 'Pain and Glory' and earlier films.
Its title refers to a classic song performed in the film by Chavela Vargas, Almodóvar's friend, whose recordings were made toward the end of her life.
Reviews have been favorable, reading the film as a confessional, self-interrogating work on how artists turn friends' lives into fiction.

Reviewer Justin Chang calls 'Bitter Christmas' a dizzyingly intricate meditation on the artist's compulsion to spin truth into fiction.
Chang finds the film absorbing as it cuts between its two stories and time frames, inviting viewers to puzzle over their similarities and differences.
Chang says the film understands better than any recent one how close friends can become the most bitterly estranged.
Chang calls the recurring criticism that Almodóvar makes the same film over and over reductive, and says he hopes Almodóvar never stops.
Chang writes that the film amounts to a prismatic valentine to the art of creation and knows that art can change life, too.
Chang forecasts that time will catch up with Almodóvar at some point, but writer's block never will.

Pedro Almodóvar explores how good friends can get so angry in 'Bitter Christmas'npr.org· 31h
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.
“Bitter Christmas” Is Pedro Almodóvar’s Gift to Usnewyorker.com· 47h
In a New Yorker review, Justin Chang calls Pedro Almodóvar's 'Bitter Christmas,' his twenty-fourth feature, a dizzyingly intricate meditation on the artist's compulsion to spin truth into fiction, giving Almodóvar two alter egos: Elsa, a director who is a character in the script Raúl is writing, and Raúl himself. Chang reads the film as confessional, following Elsa's romance with Bonifacio, a firefighter who strips on weekends, and framing the ugly side of friendship as its bitterness.

How Sombr Went from TikTok to Madison Square Gardennewyorker.com· 34h
The New Yorker's Goings On newsletter profiles sombr, the twenty-one-year-old TikTok sensation whose hits "Back to Friends" and "Undressed" earned him a Best New Artist Grammy nomination and Taylor Swift's endorsement, with Sheldon Pearce writing that he is well on his way to pop's pantheon ahead of his Madison Square Garden shows on November 23 and 24. The newsletter also covers events including "In Conversation with Merce" at Baryshnikov Arts Center, a "Waiting for Lefty" revival, and Richard Brody's take on Pedro Almodóvar's "Bitter Christmas."