Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad)
Director – Pedro Almodóvar – 2025 – Spain – Cert. 15 – 111m
***1/2
A woman learning to deal with panic attacks is actually a character playing out a screenplay as it is being written by a writer director coming out of an arid creative period – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, August 28th
This loosely falls into the category of the story of the film being written by a person outside that story, with a parallel narrative dealing with the person outside the story writing that story.
Almodovar uses this schema to talk about the writer-director whose creativity has dried up. And the medical phenomenon of panic attacks.
Elsa (Bárbara Lennie) has a migraine she can’t shift. Painkillers and rest – in the words which appear at the bottom of the screen of Elsa’s narrative as Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia) types them on his laptop – only make it worse. Her partner Beau (Patrick Criado) stays at home that evening to be there for her instead of going to the club as he normally would on a Friday. But then she feels worse, so he drives her to hospital, where she’s given an injection and a sedative, stays in overnight, and the next day feels well enough to go home.… Read the rest
