Pedro Almodóvar’s 24th feature, Bitter Christmas, may yet be his most introspective. Perhaps that’s inevitable. Now aged 76, he’s reached a point of self-reflection, a state of being that surely washes over most as they get older. Of course, this is hardly new for the Spanish director, who already brought us 2019’s Pain and Glory, starring Antonio Banderas as an ailing filmmaker, a plot-line that drew from Almodóvar’s own documented health issues.

Following 2024’s euthanasia drama The Room Next Door – his first English-language feature and the first to land him a top prize at a major festival, when it won him Venice’s Golden Lion – he’s back in Spain for a meta movie that flexes between fiction and reality. The plot’s two strands follow creator and creation, as filmmaker Raúl (Argentinian actor Leonardo Sbaraglia) struggles with his latest script. Set in 2004, his screenplay centres on Elsa (Bárbara Lennie), a commercials director who, in her dim and distant past, helmed two cult feature films.

Now Elsa wants to return to her filmmaking career, albeit she’s floundering – like Raúl – with an autobiographical script. It doesn’t help that her personal life is a mess, hardly helped by the chaos of those around her. Romantically tied to Beau (Patrick Criado), a fireman and male stripper, she’s still suffering from the loss of her mother. Then there’s her friend Patricia (Victoria Luengo), whose husband is cheating on her. Wisely, she takes a break to Lanzarote over a public holiday as she seeks to rescue her much-needed creative spark.

Almodóvar, who previously shot his 2009 feature Broken Embraces partly in Lanzarote, revels in the visual beauty of the black beaches in this mainstay of the Canary Islands. Take the overhead shot of Elsa and Patricia sunbathing, a perfect reminder that "this island has a very special energy", as we’re told. Will it be enough to reignite Elsa’s creativity, or must she draw from other sources? It will be a question that refracts through Raúl, who borrows heavily from the life of boyfriend Santi (Quim Gutiérrez) and assistant Mónica (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón).

While it would be wrong to call Bitter Christmas a satire of the modern-day movie industry, Almodóvar can’t resist aiming the occasional broadside at this so-called "dying profession". Raúl, of course, is at the top of the pile; the sort of filmmaker who is being offered a disturbingly large amount of from the (fictional) Qatar Film Festival to make an appearance. Then there’s the spectre of the streamers ("Netflix has been waiting for you for a while"), ready to dismantle the cinematic experience at a moment’s notice.

Almodóvar’s signature bold aesthetic is only shown in glimpses here; Elsa’s crimson dress and red Jeep stand out against the parched landscape of Lanzarote, but compared to earlier works, this feels muted. Nevertheless, there are flashes of the old outlandish Almodóvar, especially with the striptease scene with Beau, as the director treats us to a full, unbroken dance routine. It’s not such a stretch to see the lines drawn between Elsa and Almodóvar, at least if his career had languished with just one or two cult movies.

Above all, Bitter Christmas deals with art and morality. Is it right to magpie from the personal lives of those are you for the sake of a screenplay? Where does that blur between fiction and reality become damaging? Almodóvar doesn’t really offer any answers, as he works through his own dilemmas. And in truth Bitter Christmas, intelligent as it is, suffers from the flip-flopping between the two narratives, usually symbolised by Raúl tapping away at his keyboard. Unwrapped, it’s not top-tier Almodóvar, but it’s still a rich experience. A film to wrestle with.

Bitter Christmas is released in UK cinemas on Friday 26 August.

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