Pedro Almodóvar is known for mining his own personal experience, but Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad) explores this on a whole new level.
His viewpoint is reflected in the film in two interwoven protagonists — director Raul (Leonardo Sbaraglia), and Elsa (Bárbara Lennie), the cult filmmaker at the center of Raul’s screenplay. As Raul grapples with telling the story of Elsa’s life — she is wracked by panic attacks and migraines — he’s confronted by the murkiness of borrowing from real people for the purposes of fiction. Meanwhile, Elsa’s boyfriend Beau (Patrick Criado), a fireman who moonlights as a stripper, brings
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