Bitter Christmas [Amarga Navidad] **** (2026, Bárbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Victoria Luengo, Patrick Criado, Milena Smit, Quim Gutiérrez, Rossy de Palma)

Pedro Almodóvar’s witty and wise 2026 Spanish tragi-comedy film Bitter Christmas [Amarga Navidad] stars Bárbara Lennie and Leonardo Sbaraglia as two peas from the same pod.

Pedro Almodóvar’s 2026 Spanish tragi-comedy film Bitter Christmas [Amarga Navidad] stars Bárbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Victoria Luengo, Patrick Criado, Milena Smit, Quim Gutiérrez, and Rossy de Palma.

The 2026 Bitter Christmas [Amarga Navidad] is an elegant and graceful film, amusing, thoughtful and haunting in turns, wisely written and smoothly handled by Pedro Almodóvar, and attractively acted, especially by the appealing Bárbara Lennie and Leonardo Sbaraglia, playing two sides of the same coin. It’s a mature person’s film but Almodóvar hasn’t entirely lost his wicked sense of humour, and he has gained wisdom.

Argentine actor Leonardo Sbaraglia is the Almodóvar character in the story, struggling with his latest screenplay, while Spanish indie cinema star Bárbara Lennie is his alter ego Elsa, batting debilitating migraine. So, Elsa and Raul are one and the same, that’s nice. A little provocative, but not too much. Back in October 2024, Almodóvar pitched Bitter Christmas as ‘a tragic comedy about gender’. Maybe it changed a bit in the months till filming began on 9 June 2025.

Bitter Christmas interweaves a frame narrative set in 2025 and told chronologically, and a story within a story set in 2004, told in non-chronologically. Though the two narratives are presented separately for clarity, but the clarity isn’t exactly always clear, maybe clear enough to get the gist.

Bárbara Lennie stars as Elsa, a director of commercials and a couple of cult films, who suffers from a debilitating migraine attack during the Constitution Day long weekend in 2004 Spain. Leonardo Sbaraglia stars as celebrated film-maker Raúl, who in 2025 Spain is struggling to write a new film called Bitter Christmas [Amarga Navidad] based on his own experiences in 2004 of having a panic attack. Elsa is his alter ego and Elsa’s story is his screenplay. That’s neat.

There’s not really that much to it, but Almodóvar’s sleight of hand makes you think there is. Or maybe actually there is. It is jolly smart and clever anyway. It has a certain mesmerising charm. It doesn’t so much incorporate elements of autofiction as take that as its subject. In the movie, Almodóvar kindly explains what that is and what a cult movie is. Maybe it is all too much an in-joke, but the joke is very entertaining. It makes you feel you’ve met and got to know the real Almodóvar when the whole point of autofiction, or at least of the film, is that you haven’t. A second viewing seems essential for full understanding, and for complete pleasure, though there’s plenty of purring pleasure the first time round.

Patrick Criado plays Elsa’s firefighter stripper boyfriend Bonifacio, and the film stops for an entirely gratuitous sequence where Elsa’s recalls how she met Bonifacio at his strip club and proposes that he star in her upcoming underwear commercial. Patrick Criado’s erotically teasing striptease is a highlight of the film, and, when he’s allowed to act, Criado is a persuasive, appealing charmer. Also gratuitously, Spanish singer-songwriter Amaia Romero appears as herself playing Elsa’s friend Amaia, who sings a song from Costa Rican and Mexican singer Chavela Vargas for Elsa and Bonifacio that moves Elsa to tears. Is this the real Almodóvar?

It’s always the sign of a good film that it entertains you, stays with you, and makes you want to see it again. So here we have it. Is it really a tragi-comedy film? It’s borderline.

Bitter Christmas is smoothed along nicely with Alberto Iglesias’s intoxicatingly sprightly score and gorgeously lovely looking visuals, with Pau Esteve Birba serving as cinematographer. Alberto Iglesias won the Cannes Soundtrack Award at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, a well deserved win.

Filming began on 9 June 2025. Warner Bros released it in Spain on 20 March 2026, and then it had its international premiere on 19 May 2026 at the 79th Cannes Film Festival. Curzon released it in the UK and Ireland on 28 August 2026.

Just so you know, ‘autofiction’ is a form of fictionalised autobiography, similar to ‘faction’ devised by Truman Capote to describe his narrative non-fiction book In Cold Blood.

© Derek Winnert 2026 – Classic Movie Review 14,031

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