Bitter Christmas

Cast: Barbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Victoria Luengo, Patrick Criado, Milena Smit, Quim Gutierrez, Rossy de Palma, Carmen Machi

Pedro Almodóvar returns in top form with one of his most personal films. In “Bitter Christmas” — his first Spanish-language production in five years — there is everything that audiences love his cinema for: passion, intense colors, perverse humor and full-blooded characters that defy simple schemes. Actors and actresses known from the director's previous films appear on the screen: Bárbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Victoria Luengo, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Milena Smit and one of Almodóvar's most important muses — Rossy de Palma.

The protagonist of the film is forty-year-old Elza (Bárbara Lennie), who, after the death of her mother, throws herself into the whirlpool of work, not allowing herself to mourn. Only a panic attack forces her to stop and go on a journey that will become a confrontation with the past, lost relationships and unfulfilled desires. From chance encounters, emotional phrases and intertwining biographies, Almodóvar weaves a story about how memory, fiction and desire constantly rewrite our lives.

“Bitter Christmas” is a special gift for those who grew up with the cinema of the Spanish master - from “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” through “All About My Mother” and “Talk to Her,” to “Volver,” “Interrupted Embraces” and “Pain and Radiance.” It is also a film that goes one step further: it shows even more strongly that each of us not only lives our own story, but also tells it endlessly to ourselves. Almodóvar makes a moving confession of faith in the power of cinema, memory and narrative.