‘Bitter Christmas’ review: Pedro Almodóvar’s elegant rumination on art and morality is intensely personal yet emotionally unflinching

Drama Pedro Almodóvar 2019 Pain and glory A late-career knockout, it is among the most introspective and emotionally candid works by the great Spanish iconoclast. It portrays Antonio Banderas as never a better understudy to the director, exploring creativity, physical suffering, addiction, and memory with startling vulnerability and searing effect. in Bitter Christmas (Amarga NavidadOnce again, Almodovar draws from a very personal well, but this time he tempers the pathos by dividing his agent into two: a director wrestling with the script and a fictional filmmaker who intends to be his subject.

Returning to Spanish-speaking cinema after his first feature film in English, Next roomAlmodovar’s new film is a typically elegant exercise. It’s intricately organized along two timelines separated by decades that fit together like a puzzle. Beautifully acted by a cast of regulars and newcomers; Dripping in visual style. It soars with intense melodrama, wrapped in a lavishly turbulent score by the director’s long-time indispensable composer Alberto Iglesias.

Perhaps fittingly, however, given the frequent appearance of text in bold red letters on the screen, much of it being deleted or retyped, the material sometimes appears stuck to the page. The sense that although it’s meant to be a relief for Almodovar, an artist who reflects on his work and its emotional cost — to people closer to him than to himself — he remains somewhat distant from the audience, is compelling but rarely affecting.

For many of us, even the middlebrow Almodovar outshines much of the filmmaker’s peak work, so there will always be bonuses. In this case, one of the biggest is Antxón Gómez’s stunning production design (there’s not a single house in this movie I wouldn’t kill to live in). Combined with Paco Delgado’s elegant costumes, the eye-catching splashes of color and whimsical decor hint at aspects the characters tend to keep hidden.

There’s also a slight sense of humor and even an extended display of flamboyant masculine beauty that feels like winking gestures from an author whose appetite for pleasure has not been extinguished by the fears that clearly plague him. But despite the fun moments, Bitter Christmas It is a pessimistic film.

It seems confessional in its portrait of a director who fears he has run out of creative ideas and questions himself about the artist’s right to feed off his friends’ problems, like a traumatized vampire. But this internal conflict doesn’t offer much for the audience to latch onto, though that’s no fault of Leonardo Sbaraglia, the charismatic Argentine actor who plays Almodovar’s immediate replacement, Raúl.

Sbaraglia brings warmth and empathy to a double-edged character who exudes an air of practiced complacency but closes himself in a bubble. He lives in an airy villa surrounded by a Hockney-style pool, where his loyal younger partner, Santi (Kim Gutierrez), swims though his long-time friend and assistant Mónica (Etana Sánchez Gijón) swims. She routinely presents a list of invitations to accept honorary awards at international film festivals, sometimes accompanied by generous fees, which Raoul routinely declines.

The heroine of the screenplay set in 2004 is Elsa (Barbara Linney), who tears up when she is called a “cult director,” and quickly explains that she has made two unsuccessful films with a small but enthusiastic fan base and is now directing commercials. An early scene in which Elsa and… Ha Loyal younger partner Beau (Patrick Criado) explaining what a cult leader is to a nosy hospital doctor (a delightful Carmen Machi) is a welcome shot of humor.

The Doctor recognizes Elsa but also the attractive Pooh, the latter of his slutty routine at the bachelorette party. Bo, whose real name is Bonifacio, is a firefighter working on the sidelines – Almodóvar treats us to a full-on performance at the club where he works, driving a wedding party into a frenzy of raucous excitement as he strips down and twirls to the tune of Grace Jones singing “I’ve Seen This Face Before.” The act follows Beau dancing to Amanda Lear’s disco song “Run Baby Run,” leaving little doubt that this is still very much an Almodóvar joint. The melodrama sometimes bleeds into melancholy, but it’s nice to see that he hasn’t abandoned his old camp flair.

Like Raúl and Almodovar before him, Elsa is still mourning the loss of her mother. She suffers from severe migraines and panic attacks, and Bo couldn’t be more concerned with her care. A lovely interlude takes her to the lavish home of her friend Gabriela, played by Rossi De Palma, a glorious throwback to the Almodovar of old. Like Aunt Mame, Gabriella is busy hosting what seems like one of an endless series of fabulous parties, but she stops just long enough to give Elsa half her supply of heavy-duty prescription painkillers and insist that she rest in a quiet bedroom while they take effect.

One of Almodóvarri’s favorite inspirations is the late Mexican singer Chavela Vargas, who often used his raw farmhouses in his works to evoke emotion. (The film takes its title from one of them.) This happens twice here – first when a party guest (popular singer Amaya Romero) visits Elsa in Gabriella’s bedroom, singing “Las Simples Cosas” (“Love is simple / And simple things are eaten up by time”); And soon after, when Elsa visits her friend Patricia (Victoria Luengo), who plays Chavela’s raspy, late-in-life rendition of “La Llorona” on the stereo.

But the charming melancholy of these rancheras is not matched by a similar depth of feeling in the narrative(s). A change of setting occurs when Elsa takes Patricia to stay at a luxury rental apartment on the volcanic island of Lanzarote, bringing different visual textures – DP Pau Esteve Birba takes full advantage of the black, windswept lava fields – but the film’s parallel plot scheme becomes more mechanical as Elsa also begins to work on the screenplay.

One of the best scenes occurs when Patricia, who believes her husband is cheating on her, resents being used as fodder for Elsa’s script. Even more so when Elsa gives a scathing assessment of her marriage. Patricia’s angry departure gives way to the arrival of Natalia (Melina Smit), another depressed friend who has retreated to her childhood pueblo with her mother after a devastating loss.

Almodóvar and editor Teresa Font handle the transitions between the two time periods with wonderful fluidity. But the intersection of life and art leads to a disappointingly muted payoff. This is despite the refresher fireworks when Mónica returns – having left to care for her ill partner Elena, taking with her a draft of Raúl’s screenplay to read – angry at his insensitivity.

Monica lets him have it as he uses Elena’s tragic circumstances as dramatic fuel. He responds defensively, insisting that it’s pure fantasy and that she’s overreacting, prompting her to eviscerate him out of laziness behind his creative crisis. She even attacks him about Santi, towards whom she feels protective, while Raoul treats him the same way Elsa treats Poe—as someone with no identity beyond that of a loving companion.

Sánchez Gijon (along with Smit, one of the most prominent players in… Parallel mothers) It is wonderful in these fierce scenes that are filled with the frank honesty of the director, who re-evaluates some of the works that made him famous. but Bitter Christmas It feels like a tortured analytical construct, in which Almodóvar—usually the most generous of artists—works things out in his head rather than convincing his audience to share the experience.