Bitter Christmas

“Bitter Christmas opens a window into Pedro Almodóvar’s mind at his most introspective, with women at its center and a gay couple at peace.”

Title: Bitter Christmas (2026) / Spanish: Amarga Navidad
Director: Pedro Almodóvar 👨🏼🇪🇸🌈
Writer: Pedro Almodóvar 👨🏼🇪🇸🌈

Reviewed by Jose Solís 👨🏽🇭🇳🌈

Technical: 4.5/5

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar might be known for grand, melodramatic works like Volver (2006) and All About My Mother (1999), but since Julieta (2016), his films have turned mournful and more withdrawn. Bitter Christmas continues this direction, arriving as a small, cool chamber piece that grows richer the longer you sit with it. It splits its timelines: In 2004, an advertising director, Elsa (Bárbara Lennie), falls apart after her mother dies at Christmas. In an effort to process her grief, she escapes to the volcanic beaches of Lanzarote with a friend. In 2026, Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia) is a filmmaker who’s trying to write his way out of a mental block, and it slowly becomes clear that Elsa’s story is the screenplay he’s typing.

Bitter Christmas keeps us at arm’s length at first, offering an intellectual exercise full of meta—and Almodóvar pulls it off with confidence. For example, the film’s title types itself across the screen, and when letters begin to spell out Elsa’s story, Almodóvar cuts to Raúl at his keyboard. In one of its cleverest moments, Raúl’s characters sit around, waiting to be written. One of them says, “El cine tiene algo de premonitorio” (“Cinema has something premonitory about it”), a tongue-in-cheek wink for those delighted by the film’s self-awareness. Other spots of humor are there if you look close enough, mostly from Raúl. He can’t see anyone beyond himself, and instead of learning from his mistakes, he pathologizes them in his work.

Bitter Christmas is one of Almodóvar’s most beautiful to date. Its bold, vibrant colors seem to scream everything the characters hold back. One shot of two figures on a Lanzarote beach, where the ocean becomes a sky reaching up at them from below, has a Dalí-like surrealism. The music does as much work as the images; Alberto Iglesias’ score carries the characters’ angst and pain.

Lennie, back with Almodóvar after a part in The Skin I Live In (2011), gives Elsa the refreshing, elegant arrogance of someone who knows her own genius and expects everyone else to bow to it. Sbaraglia appeared in Pain and Glory (2019) as a love interest, and here, he plays Raúl with boyish petulance. Patrick Criado is breathtakingly beautiful as Beau, Elsa’s sensitive firefighter boyfriend who has the biggest heart in the film. And Victoria Luengo, who also appeared in Almodóvar’s previous film, The Room Next Door (2024), shines in her few scenes with Lennie as a woman who sees through Elsa’s selfishness. Simple as Bitter Christmas may seem on the surface, these performances are deceptively complex.

Gender: 4.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

For four decades, Almodóvar has proved himself one of cinema’s greatest writers and directors of women. His films tend to center female ensembles and feminist points of view. Here, he does something new by making a woman, Elsa, one of his two avatars—a role he usually gives to men, like Antonio Banderas’ character in Pain and Glory, or Raúl in this film. Yes, Raúl is still a man writing a woman, but Elsa is fully explored and carries some of the director’s most autobiographical material. In Almodóvar’s 2023 book, The Last Dream, he writes about the last time he saw his mother and the storms that came before her death. In Bitter Christmas, Elsa’s dying mother also talks about “the coming storms.”

Beyond its avatars, Bitter Christmas also flips the usual gender roles. Beau, a firefighter who also works as a stripper, plays the supportive partner in Elsa’s story, just as Santi (Quim Gutiérrez) does in Raúl’s. Beau and Santi share personality traits and often mirror each other.

The strongest bonds in the film are between women. Whenever Elsa needs something, whether it’s anxiety medication or a story to steal, she calls her best friend Patricia (Luengo), and their conversations range from Chavela Vargas’ music to cheating husbands. Meanwhile, Raúl’s loyal assistant, Mónica (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), knows him best and stands her ground against her stubborn boss.

Race: 1.5/5

Apart from Sbaraglia, an Argentine who keeps his native accent in a role that never mentions his nationality, the principal cast is white and Spanish. The only actor of color, Luis Jaspe (who’s Venezuelan Spanish), plays a waiter with no lines. The film never touches on race or immigration.

Bonus for LGBTQ: +0.75

Almodóvar’s LGBTQ representation has matured since the tragic love of Pain and Glory. In Bitter Christmas, he gives Raúl and Santi a settled domestic life with problems that any couple would recognize. Santi adores Raúl, rarely questions him, and waits by his side. The film shows their love through Santi’s devotion more than through intimacy, and the relationship is calm, almost boring. In addition, Mónica has a girlfriend that she mentions going on a trip with, although we never meet her.

Bonus for Age: +0.75

Elsa’s dying mother (Gloria Muñoz, 78 at the time of the film’s release) anchors the 2004 story. Carmen Machi (63) also makes a vivid impression as Elsa’s doctor. Although she only has one scene, she commands it. Raúl and many of the people around him are in their 50s and 60s, and the film explores their sex lives and desire with the understanding that people don’t simply stop being sexual because of their age.

Bonus for Disability: +0.50

Elsa’s anxiety and depression are a major theme in the film. The people around her recognize mental health issues and talk about them without shame, such as mentioning their psychiatrists matter-of-factly. When Elsa’s friend Gabriela (Rossy de Palma) shares her anxiety medication, she warns Elsa that she can’t give her all of it because she’ll need some herself.

Mediaversity Grade: B+ 4.17/5

Bitter Christmas opens a window into the mind of a master at his most introspective, with women at its center and a gay couple at peace. But its almost all-white world keeps it from reaching its full potential on the inclusion front.

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Grade: BLiNovember 11, 2026Great for: LGBTQ, Great for: Age, Great for: Disability