{"id":365445,"date":"2025-12-22T22:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T22:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/365445\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T22:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T22:48:10","slug":"pedro-almodovars-latest-mortality-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/365445\/","title":{"rendered":"Pedro Almod\u00f3var’s Latest Mortality Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

After portraying the more buttoned-up world of Manhattan and upstate New York in his English-language feature debut, \u201cThe Room Next Door<\/a>,\u201d Spanish auteur Pedro Almod\u00f3var<\/a> returns to his home country for his forthcoming drama \u201cBitter Christmas<\/a>,\u201d or \u201cAmarga Navidad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Featuring a cast of Almod\u00f3var newcomers and frequent collaborators, the film<\/a> centers on an advertising director, Elsa, whose mother dies during a holiday weekend in December. According to a synopsis previously shared by Variety<\/a>, \u201c[Elsa] throws herself into work as a form of escape, not realizing she\u2019s denying herself the time to grieve. Her relentless pace is interrupted when a panic attack forces her to take a break. Her partner, Bonifacio, becomes her anchor in this moment of crisis. Elsa decides to travel to the island of Lanzarote with her friend Patricia, who is also looking to get away from Madrid, while Bonifacio stays behind in the city. The story of these three characters, and several others, runs parallel to that of screenwriter and film director Ra\u00fal Dur\u00e1n, intertwining fiction and reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Park<\/a> \"AVATAR:<\/a> <\/p>\n

Curzon Film released the first trailer for the \u201cBitter Christmas<\/a>\u201d at the end of last week, teasing Almod\u00f3var\u2019s return to the romantic landscapes and interiors of Spain. Brimming with tense vibes, thanks to a chorus of string instruments furiously playing in the background, the trailer opens with an overhead shot of two women sunning on the beach and then reveals little else. But the nearly wordless snippet does hint at the fact that the film \u2014 which is described as an exploration of \u201chow life and fiction are inseparably linked, sometimes painfully so\u201d \u2014 features a surplus of characters locked in complex dynamics, along with pops of the director\u2019s signature red and an otherwise distinctly vibrant palette.<\/p>\n

\u201cBitter Christmas,\u201d which continues Almod\u00f3var\u2019s later-career focus on mortality<\/a>, stars B\u00e1rbara Lennie (\u201cPetra\u201d), Leonardo Sbaraglia (\u201cPain and Glory\u201d), Aitana S\u00e1nchez-Gij\u00f3n (\u201cParallel Mothers\u201d), Victoria Luengo (\u201cThe Room Next Door\u201d), Patrick Criado (\u201cRiot Police\u201d), Milena Smit (\u201cParallel Mothers\u201d), and Quim Guti\u00e9rrez (\u201cDarkbluealmostblack\u201d). The feature will be released in Spain on March 20 by Warner Bros, with a U.S. release from Sony Pictures Classics to follow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Watch the teaser below.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After portraying the more buttoned-up world of Manhattan and upstate New York in his English-language feature debut, \u201cThe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,198496,134,1689,344,198497,13293],"class_list":{"0":"post-365445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bitter-christmas","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-film","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-pedro-almodu00f3var","15":"tag-trailers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}