"An elaborately nested reflection on creative license, story ownership and art imitating life imitating art."—Guy Lodge, Variety
"Almodóvar nests one story inside another, leaps between them with breathtaking fluidity, and brings them both to a virtuosic, if abrupt, finish."—Justin Chang, The New Yorker
Bitter Christmas tells two alternating stories, one starring Elsa, an advertising director, in 2004, during a long weekend in December. The second takes place in 2026 and stars Raúl, a screenwriter and director who is writing a script that we soon discover is the story of Elsa, her boyfriend Bonifacio, and her friends Patricia and Natalia. Mixed with fiction, Elsa is, in a way, Raúl's alter ego, who, like him, resorts to autofiction as a solution to a long period of creative drought. He looks inside himself, and he can't help but also look at the people who make up his most intimate universe: his partner and his assistant.